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Lucapa fire, 3 July 2018 Lucapa

Out · last detection 14 Jul 2018, 23:47 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2018 in Lucapa, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,937 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 186th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 45 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Burnt area
6,937ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
3 Jul 2018 – 14 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Jul
2018
Heat detections
205
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

34567891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
46km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,302 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Lucapa where it started
    6,993 ha reached on 3 Jul
    0.4 %

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)
3 Jul 29.9 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Jul 30.0 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Jul 29.3 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Jul 28.9 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jul 28.8 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Jul 29.3 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jul 29.9 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Jul 30.1 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jul 30.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jul 31.4 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Jul 31.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Jul 31.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Jul after 31.4 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jul after 30.4 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jul after 28.9 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jul after 28.2 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jul after 29.3 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul after 29.9 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jul after 30.5 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jul after 30.6 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jul after 31.1 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jul after 29.2 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jun 2018
After · 21 Jul 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 · 205Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 July 2018 and 14 July 2018: 12 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 6,937 hectares (69.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lucapa (6,993 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.