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Dirico fire, 5 July 2022 Dirico

Out · last detection 23 Jul 2022, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 5 July 2022 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,195 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 455th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 87 in Angola in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
6,195ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
5 Jul 2022 – 22 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Jul
2022
Heat detections
207
in a single hotspot: 182 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jul22 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
43km/h · peak gust
23%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: 2,529 ha in 2017, 594 ha in 2018, 5,307 ha in 2019, 1,385 ha in 2020, 84 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,873 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dirico where it started
    6,219 ha reached on 5 Jul
    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)
5 Jul 25.1 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Jul 25.0 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Jul 25.3 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Jul 25.2 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Jul 24.2 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Jul 24.6 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Jul 25.8 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jul 25.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Jul 24.6 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Jul 25.3 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jul 24.7 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Jul 23.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Jul 23.0 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Jul 22.9 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Jul 23.4 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jul 24.8 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jul 25.4 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Jul 26.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Jul after 26.0 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Jul after 28.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jul after 28.0 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul after 27.7 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jul after 27.3 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jul after 27.4 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jul after 26.5 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Jul after 27.0 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Jul after 28.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Aug after 29.4 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jun 2022
After · 29 Jul 2022

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 · 207Every 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 5 July 2022 and 22 July 2022: 18 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 6,195 hectares (62.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dirico (6,219 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
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.