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Dirico fire, 14 September 2016 Dirico

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2016, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2016 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,988 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 476th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 82 in Angola in 2016, of 138.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Dirico · 2017Dirico · 2026Dirico · 2023Dirico · 2022

Burnt area
5,988ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
14 Sept 2016 – 17 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Sept
2016
Heat detections
190
in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start
62
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
521MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept17 Sept
18 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

14 Sept 2016 · 1,115 MW · 79 15 Sept 2016 · 415 MW · 32 16 Sept 2016 · 724 MW · 44 17 Sept 2016 · 238 MW · 18 18 Sept 2016 · 113 MW · 15
14 Sept 15 Sept 16 Sept 17 Sept 18 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
47km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Dirico where it started
    6,018 ha reached on 13 Sept
    0.3 %

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)
14 Sept 34.9 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
15 Sept 35.9 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
16 Sept 35.2 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Sept 33.0 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
18 Sept after 30.7 °C 7 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
19 Sept after 32.2 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Sept after 33.9 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Sept after 34.2 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
22 Sept after 34.9 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Sept after 35.3 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Sept after 36.2 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Sept after 36.2 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
26 Sept after 36.3 °C 9 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
27 Sept after 34.9 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2016
After · 24 Sept 2016

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 · 190Every 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 Dirico fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2016 and 17 September 2016: 4 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 5,988 hectares (59.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dirico (6,018 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 190 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.