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Dirico fire, 4 August 2026 Dirico

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2026, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2026 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,085 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 467th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 347 in Angola in 2026, of 485.

Burnt area
6,085ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
4 Aug 2026 – 9 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Aug
2026
Heat detections
104
in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

5678

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
36km/h · peak gust
12%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: 1,046 ha in 2016, 2,944 ha in 2017, 490 ha in 2018, 812 ha in 2019, 809 ha in 2020, 68 ha in 2021, 2,405 ha in 2022, 1,104 ha in 2023, 1,163 ha in 2024, 980 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,690 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dirico where it started
    6,116 ha reached on 2 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)
2 Aug 27.0 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Aug 26.9 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Aug 27.6 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Aug 28.7 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug 28.9 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Aug 28.4 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Aug 27.5 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Aug 28.1 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Aug after 26.6 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Aug after 24.1 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Aug after 26.1 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug after 27.5 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug after 27.5 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Aug after 26.8 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Aug after 26.3 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 27.6 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Aug after 29.8 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug after 31.2 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Aug after 31.2 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
21 Aug after 30.3 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Aug after 30.4 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2026
After · 16 Aug 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 13 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1061 µg/m³
Optical depth0.74
31123456789101112131415
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 104Every 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 4 August 2026 and 9 August 2026: 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 6,085 hectares (60.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dirico (6,116 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.