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Lucapa fire, 30 June 2018 Lucapa

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2018, 11:58 UTC

The fire started on 30 June 2018 in Lucapa, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,296 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 41th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 6 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Lucapa · 2017Lucapa · 2019Lucapa · 2023Lucapa · 2026

Burnt area
14,296ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
30 Jun 2018 – 27 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Jun
2018
Heat detections
683
in a single hotspot: 150 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
197MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jun27 Jul
27 Jul 2018

How it evolved, day by day

30 Jun 2018 · 149 MW · 21 1 Jul 2018 · 76 MW · 11 2 Jul 2018 · 21 MW · 4 3 Jul 2018 · 243 MW · 62 4 Jul 2018 · 216 MW · 53 5 Jul 2018 · 421 MW · 74 6 Jul 2018 · 313 MW · 25 7 Jul 2018 · 176 MW · 55 8 Jul 2018 · 411 MW · 77 9 Jul 2018 · 506 MW · 52 10 Jul 2018 · 461 MW · 28 11 Jul 2018 · 274 MW · 20 12 Jul 2018 · 310 MW · 21 13 Jul 2018 · 169 MW · 15 14 Jul 2018 · 20 MW · 6 15 Jul 2018 · 59 MW · 11 16 Jul 2018 · 128 MW · 20 17 Jul 2018 · 36 MW · 6 18 Jul 2018 · 144 MW · 13 19 Jul 2018 · 111 MW · 26 20 Jul 2018 · 48 MW · 13 21 Jul 2018 · 38 MW · 5 22 Jul 2018 · 27 MW · 4 23 Jul 2018 · 82 MW · 16 24 Jul 2018 · 416 MW · 17 25 Jul 2018 · 580 MW · 17 26 Jul 2018 · 18 MW · 3 27 Jul 2018 · 53 MW · 8
30 Jun 4 Jul 8 Jul 12 Jul 16 Jul 20 Jul 24 Jul 25 Jul

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
46km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,948 ha in 2016, 5,114 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,351 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9% of the area of London (143 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Lucapa where it started
    14,367 ha reached on 30 Jun
    0.8 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
30 Jun 31.2 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Jul 30.2 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Jul 31.8 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Jul 29.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Jul 30.4 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Jul 30.6 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Jul 30.1 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Jul 30.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Jul 30.5 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Jul 31.1 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Jul 31.0 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jul 31.4 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Jul 32.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Jul 31.5 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Jul 31.3 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Jul 32.1 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jul 31.2 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jul 30.1 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jul 29.2 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jul 30.6 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul 31.1 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Jul 31.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jul 31.5 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jul 32.3 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jul 30.7 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jul 29.6 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jul 30.7 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Jul 31.1 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jul after 31.4 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jul after 30.9 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul after 31.5 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul after 31.2 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Aug after 28.0 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
2 Aug after 31.0 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Aug after 31.0 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Aug after 32.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Aug after 33.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Aug after 32.6 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jun 2018
After · 3 Aug 2018

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 · 683Every 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 Lucapa fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 June 2018 to 27 July 2018 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 June 2018 to 24 July 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,296 hectares (143.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lucapa (14,367 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % 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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 24 July 2018 → 27 July 2018.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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 30 June 2018 to 24 July 2018. 683 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.