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Dirico fire, 5 August 2022 Dirico

Out · last detection 17 Aug 2022, 12:09 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2022 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,654 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 535th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 108 in Angola in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
5,654ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
5 Aug 2022 – 16 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Aug
2022
Heat detections
159
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
38km/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

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,375 ha in 2016, 2,129 ha in 2017, 2,402 ha in 2018, 355 ha in 2019, 1,510 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,304 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dirico where it started
    5,684 ha reached on 11 Aug
    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 Aug 30.0 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug 29.7 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug 30.0 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 30.8 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 30.9 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Aug 30.7 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Aug 31.0 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Aug 30.4 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug 30.1 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug 29.4 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Aug 28.8 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Aug 30.4 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Aug after 31.4 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Aug after 32.2 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug after 25.4 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Aug after 24.2 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Aug after 26.9 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Aug after 28.8 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug after 29.2 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Aug after 28.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Aug after 28.2 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Aug after 30.3 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2022
After · 23 Aug 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 · 159Every 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 August 2022 and 16 August 2022: 12 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 5,654 hectares (56.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dirico (5,684 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.