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Dirico fire, 10 September 2022 Dirico

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2022, 12:47 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2022 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,020 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 196th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 32 in Angola in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
10,020ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
10 Sept 2022 – 15 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Sept
2022
Heat detections
304
in a single hotspot: 175 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
47km/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

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,642 ha in 2017, 4,507 ha in 2019, 1,751 ha in 2020, 1,425 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,308 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dirico where it started
    10,083 ha reached on 10 Sept
    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)
10 Sept 32.8 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Sept 33.3 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Sept 34.3 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Sept 33.6 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Sept 32.9 °C 16 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
15 Sept 31.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Sept after 31.0 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Sept after 32.0 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Sept after 34.0 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Sept after 34.8 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Sept after 28.0 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
21 Sept after 30.6 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Sept after 32.9 °C 5 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Sept after 35.1 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Sept after 35.6 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
25 Sept after 35.4 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2022
After · 22 Sept 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 · 304Every 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 10 September 2022 and 15 September 2022: 6 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 10,020 hectares (100.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dirico (10,083 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.