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Dirico fire, 30 August 2020 Dirico

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2020, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2020 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,820 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 240th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 26 in Angola in 2020, of 123.

Burnt area
8,820ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
30 Aug 2020 – 7 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2020
Heat detections
403
in a single hotspot: 203 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

303112345678

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
50km/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

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,903 ha in 2016, 2,542 ha in 2017, 2,042 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,221 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dirico where it started
    8,870 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.5 %

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)
30 Aug 27.3 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
31 Aug 28.6 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Sept 31.4 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept 32.1 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Sept 32.8 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Sept 33.0 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Sept 32.1 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Sept 30.6 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Sept 31.1 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Sept after 30.8 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Sept after 30.5 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Sept after 30.3 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Sept after 31.0 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Sept after 30.5 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Sept after 30.7 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Sept after 33.0 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Sept after 34.4 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Sept after 34.1 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Sept after 35.9 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2020
After · 14 Sept 2020

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 · 403Every 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 30 August 2020 and 7 September 2020: 9 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 8,820 hectares (88.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dirico (8,870 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.