Dirico fire, 14 August 2025 Dirico
The fire started on 14 August 2025 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,350 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 589th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 158 in Angola in 2025, of 191.
- Burnt area
- 5,350ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 14 Aug 2025 – 19 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 14 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 134
- in a single hotspot: 79 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.8GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 983 ha in 2016, 1,553 ha in 2017, 572 ha in 2018, 1,764 ha in 2019, 931 ha in 2020, 2,395 ha in 2021, 1,240 ha in 2022, 3,293 ha in 2023, 1,974 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,322 ha that had burned before.
- 2,395 ha Dirico fire, September 2021 14,488 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,365 ha Dirico fire, August 2023 32,075 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,117 ha Dirico fire, September 2019 8,307 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 924 ha Dirico fire, August 2024 12,712 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 876 ha Dirico fire, August 2024 9,353 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 572 ha Dirico fire, September 2018 29,098 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 208 ha Dirico fire, September 2016 6,501 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 79 ha Dirico fire, August 2017 5,813 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Dirico where it started5,377 ha reached on 13 Aug0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Aug | 30.3 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 15 Aug | 32.0 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Aug | 31.4 °C | 8 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 17 Aug | 31.4 °C | 8 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 18 Aug | 31.7 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 19 Aug | 31.8 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 20 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 21 Aug after | 31.8 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 22 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 5 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 23 Aug after | 33.6 °C | 5 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Aug after | 33.9 °C | 6 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 25 Aug after | 33.1 °C | 4 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 26 Aug after | 33.8 °C | 16 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 27 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Aug after | 33.6 °C | 10 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 29 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 7 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 16 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 81 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 134Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 32,075 haDirico17 August 2023 · 11 days · 6 km away
- 29,098 haDirico14 September 2018 · 13 days · 14 km away
- 24,522 haDirico5 August 2022 · 15 days · 18 km away
- 18,883 haDiricoAugust 2016 · 18 days · 29 km away
- 18,864 haDirico11 September 2022 · 6 days · 31 km away
- 18,429 haDirico4 September 2026 · 14 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dirico fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 August 2025 and 19 August 2025: 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 5,350 hectares (53.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dirico (5,377 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.
Report an error
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.