How long did the Dirico fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2026 and 25 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 5,402 hectares (54.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dirico (5,241 ha, 0.3 %); Mavinga (179 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 43 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.

AO · Angola · 2026-08-20 → 2026-08-25

Dirico fire, 20 August 2026 Dirico, Mavinga

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2026, 13:16 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2026 in Dirico, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,402 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 578th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 422 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 5,402ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 20 Aug 2026 – 25 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 20 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 90; in a single hotspot: 96 MW
Danger at start: 55; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 1.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

43km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,803 ha in 2016, 3,508 ha in 2017, 885 ha in 2018, 315 ha in 2019, 1,534 ha in 2020, 1,430 ha in 2021, 599 ha in 2023, 32 ha in 2024, 619 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,989 ha that had burned before.

3,508 ha Dirico fire, September 2017 15,017 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Dirico where it started

5,241 ha reached on 20 Aug

0.3 %
Mavinga

179 ha

0.0 %

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	Danger (FWI)
20 Aug	30.8 °C	15 %	42 km/h	Extreme 55
21 Aug	30.0 °C	13 %	40 km/h	Extreme 53
22 Aug	30.0 °C	19 %	31 km/h	Very high 48
23 Aug	31.7 °C	16 %	43 km/h	Extreme 56
24 Aug	31.8 °C	14 %	40 km/h	Extreme 54
25 Aug	31.0 °C	15 %	35 km/h	Extreme 50
26 Aug after	31.6 °C	15 %	36 km/h	Extreme 51
27 Aug after	30.8 °C	16 %	38 km/h	Extreme 54
28 Aug after	29.3 °C	15 %	42 km/h	Extreme 56
29 Aug after	29.1 °C	16 %	34 km/h	Extreme 50
30 Aug after	31.1 °C	20 %	34 km/h	Very high 48
31 Aug after	33.0 °C	20 %	36 km/h	Very high 50
1 Sept after	33.9 °C	17 %	34 km/h	Very high 48
2 Sept after	33.1 °C	18 %	34 km/h	Very high 49
3 Sept after	33.7 °C	15 %	34 km/h	Very high 49
4 Sept after	34.2 °C	13 %	28 km/h	Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Aug 2026

After · 1 Sept 2026

Before After

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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³

Days over the guideline11 days

PM1056 µg/m³

Optical depth0.66

WHO 15

1819202122232425262728

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 · 90Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dirico fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2026 and 25 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 5,402 hectares (54.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dirico (5,241 ha, 0.3 %); Mavinga (179 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 43 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned