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Dirico fire, 31 August 2021 Dirico, Rivungo

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2021, 12:15 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2021 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,170 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 152th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 24 in Angola in 2021, of 126.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Dirico · 2020Dirico · 2018Dirico · 2019Dirico · 2020

Burnt area
11,170ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
31 Aug 2021 – 20 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
31 Aug
2021
Heat detections
415
in a single hotspot: 179 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
331MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug20 Sept
20 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

31 Aug 2021 · 159 MW · 5 1 Sept 2021 · 8 MW · 3 2 Sept 2021 · 12 MW · 3 5 Sept 2021 · 201 MW · 18 6 Sept 2021 · 1,830 MW · 55 7 Sept 2021 · 229 MW · 21 8 Sept 2021 · 978 MW · 67 9 Sept 2021 · 361 MW · 45 10 Sept 2021 · 373 MW · 37 11 Sept 2021 · 34 MW · 5 12 Sept 2021 · 65 MW · 6 13 Sept 2021 · 72 MW · 15 14 Sept 2021 · 880 MW · 37 15 Sept 2021 · 236 MW · 25 16 Sept 2021 · 100 MW · 10 17 Sept 2021 · 105 MW · 13 18 Sept 2021 · 293 MW · 23 19 Sept 2021 · 300 MW · 24 20 Sept 2021 · 51 MW · 3
31 Aug 5 Sept 6 Sept 8 Sept 11 Sept 14 Sept 17 Sept 20 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

37°high
50km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,310 ha in 2016, 5,352 ha in 2017, 5,477 ha in 2018, 5,194 ha in 2019, 6,866 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,816 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.1% of the area of London (112 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
    7,741 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.4 %
  2. Rivungo
    3,482 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
31 Aug 33.0 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept 32.4 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 32.9 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Sept 31.9 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept 32.9 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Sept 34.4 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Sept 35.0 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Sept 34.4 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Sept 34.4 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Sept 33.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Sept 31.6 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Sept 29.9 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Sept 29.8 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Sept 31.1 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Sept 33.7 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept 35.5 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Sept 36.6 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Sept 35.0 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Sept 35.3 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Sept 34.5 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Sept 35.0 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Sept after 35.5 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Sept after 35.7 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
23 Sept after 34.5 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Sept after 34.6 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Sept after 34.6 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Sept after 34.3 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
27 Sept after 35.2 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
28 Sept after 35.3 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
29 Sept after 36.0 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Sept after 36.6 °C 17 % 39 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 · 24 Aug 2021
After · 27 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 · 415Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 August 2021 to 20 September 2021 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 September 2021 to 20 September 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,170 hectares (111.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dirico (7,741 ha, 0.4 %); Rivungo (3,482 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 5 September 2021 → 31 August 2021.

RSS Changes to this page

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 September 2021 to 20 September 2021. 415 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.