Dirico fire, 26 August 2026 Dirico
The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,908 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 166th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 148 in Angola in 2026, of 486.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Dirico · 2025Dirico · 2025Dirico · 2017Dirico · 2017
- Burnt area
- 10,908ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 26 Aug 2026 – 7 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 26 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 232
- in a single hotspot: 233 MW
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 758MW
- detected power per day, on average
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
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,538 ha in 2016, 2,498 ha in 2017, 650 ha in 2018, 2,469 ha in 2019, 706 ha in 2020, 2,488 ha in 2021, 3,806 ha in 2022, 2,209 ha in 2023, 2,177 ha in 2024, 5,283 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,173 ha that had burned before.
- 2,779 ha Dirico fire, September 2025 5,879 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,505 ha Dirico fire, September 2025 60,982 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,245 ha Dirico fire, September 2017 6,673 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,203 ha Dirico fire, September 2017 5,755 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,024 ha Dirico fire, August 2022 8,462 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Dirico where it started10,974 ha reached on 26 Aug0.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Aug | 32.0 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Aug | 31.6 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 28 Aug | 30.0 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 29 Aug | 29.6 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 30 Aug | 31.7 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 31 Aug | 33.6 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 1 Sept | 34.9 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 2 Sept | 33.6 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 3 Sept | 34.7 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 4 Sept | 33.5 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 5 Sept | 33.2 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 6 Sept | 33.3 °C | 13 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 7 Sept | 34.0 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.7 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Sept after | 33.4 °C | 22 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 9 Sept after | 31.4 °C | 23 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 10 Sept after | 30.1 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Sept after | 31.3 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Sept after | 33.3 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 13 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 14 Sept after | 33.8 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 15 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Sept after | 36.4 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 17 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 9 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
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 7 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 114 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.8 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 · 232Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dirico fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2026 to 7 September 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2026 to 7 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,908 hectares (109.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dirico (10,974 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 31 August 2026 to 7 September 2026. 232 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.