Dirico fire, 18 August 2026 Dirico
The fire started on 18 August 2026 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 81,550 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 4th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 8 in Angola in 2026, of 485.
- Burnt area
- 81,550ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 30days
- 18 Aug 2026 – 16 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,878
- in a single hotspot: 362 MW
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 31.4GW
- 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 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.9 mm on 19 Sept.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 20,528 ha in 2016, 30,630 ha in 2017, 23,593 ha in 2018, 28,832 ha in 2019, 26,750 ha in 2020, 24,619 ha in 2021, 35,093 ha in 2022, 26,548 ha in 2023, 18,173 ha in 2024, 36,214 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 80,314 ha that had burned before.
- 26,058 ha Dirico fire, September 2025 60,982 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 15,024 ha Dirico fire, July 2019 93,844 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,292 ha Dirico fire, September 2023 17,615 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,616 ha Dirico fire, August 2020 22,273 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,631 ha Dirico fire, August 2017 16,657 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,527 ha Dirico fire, September 2021 17,028 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,590 ha Dirico fire, July 2022 15,478 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,357 ha Dirico fire, August 2025 12,089 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Dirico where it started81,923 ha reached on 18 Aug4.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Aug | 30.9 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 20 Aug | 31.1 °C | 13 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 21 Aug | 30.1 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 22 Aug | 30.3 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 23 Aug | 31.8 °C | 16 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 24 Aug | 32.0 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 25 Aug | 31.2 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Aug | 31.6 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Aug | 31.3 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 28 Aug | 29.6 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 29 Aug | 29.3 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 30 Aug | 31.4 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 31 Aug | 33.3 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 1 Sept | 34.4 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 2 Sept | 33.3 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 3 Sept | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 4 Sept | 33.5 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 5 Sept | 33.0 °C | 9 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 6 Sept | 32.6 °C | 16 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Sept | 33.5 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 46 |
| 8 Sept | 33.0 °C | 22 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 9 Sept | 31.0 °C | 23 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 10 Sept | 29.7 °C | 21 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 11 Sept | 30.9 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Sept | 32.9 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 13 Sept | 34.9 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 14 Sept | 33.8 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Sept | 34.3 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Sept | 35.9 °C | 18 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 17 Sept after | 35.3 °C | 9 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 18 Sept after | 35.4 °C | 9 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 19 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 25 % | 48 km/h | 6.9 mm | Moderate 14 |
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 6 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 170 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 87: 5.8 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 · 1,878Every 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 18 August 2026 to 16 September 2026 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2026 to 16 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 81,550 hectares (815.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dirico (81,923 ha, 4.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 52 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
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.