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Dirico fire, 8 August 2023 Dirico

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2023, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2023 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,537 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 414th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 87 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
6,537ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
8 Aug 2023 – 19 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Aug
2023
Heat detections
254
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617181920

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
48km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 272 ha in 2017, 2,025 ha in 2019, 992 ha in 2020, 891 ha in 2021, 1,238 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,898 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dirico where it started
    6,581 ha reached on 8 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
8 Aug 27.7 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug 27.9 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Aug 28.2 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Aug 28.1 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug 29.2 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Aug 29.7 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug 30.6 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug 31.5 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Aug 31.0 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Aug 31.8 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Aug 32.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug 32.3 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Aug after 33.6 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Aug after 34.0 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Aug after 35.1 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Aug after 35.0 °C 12 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Aug after 34.6 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Aug after 34.7 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Aug after 32.7 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
27 Aug after 30.7 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
28 Aug after 28.0 °C 34 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
29 Aug after 27.3 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2023
After · 26 Aug 2023

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 · 254Every 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 8 August 2023 and 19 August 2023: 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 6,537 hectares (65.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dirico (6,581 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.