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Lubalo fire, 27 July 2017 Lubalo

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2017, 11:33 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2017 in Lubalo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,857 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 194th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 73 in Angola in 2017, of 158.

Burnt area
6,857ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
27 Jul 2017 – 4 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Jul
2017
Heat detections
235
in a single hotspot: 218 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

272829303112345

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
46km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,508 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Lubalo where it started
    6,901 ha reached on 26 Jul
    0.5 %

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)
27 Jul 30.3 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jul 29.9 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Jul 29.2 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jul 30.3 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jul 31.7 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Aug 32.8 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Aug 30.1 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Aug 32.4 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Aug 32.7 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Aug after 30.6 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Aug after 31.0 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug after 32.0 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Aug after 31.5 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Aug after 30.9 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Aug after 30.1 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug after 30.5 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Aug after 31.6 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Aug after 32.1 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Aug after 32.0 °C 15 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2017
After · 11 Aug 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 235Every 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 Lubalo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2017 and 4 August 2017: 9 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 6,857 hectares (68.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lubalo (6,901 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
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.