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Cuchi fire, September 2021 Cuchi

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2021, 12:03 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2021 in Cuchi, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,179 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 617th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 120 in Angola in 2021, of 126.

Burnt area
5,179ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
4 Sept 2021 – 10 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2021
Heat detections
150
in a single hotspot: 182 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

5678910

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high
52km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 292 ha in 2016, 1,937 ha in 2017, 690 ha in 2018, 4,802 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,912 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuchi where it started
    5,222 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
4 Sept 32.2 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
5 Sept 33.6 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Sept 33.8 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Sept 34.5 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Sept 35.3 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Sept 35.0 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Sept 31.9 °C 16 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
11 Sept after 31.5 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Sept after 30.8 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Sept after 33.0 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept after 34.5 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Sept after 34.8 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Sept after 34.9 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Sept after 34.3 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Sept after 35.1 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Sept after 34.2 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Sept after 33.7 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 28 Aug 2021
After · 17 Sept 2021

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 150Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cuchi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2021 and 10 September 2021: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,179 hectares (51.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuchi (5,222 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Angola (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Public Domain). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.