Lucapa fire, 6 July 2022 Lucapa, Cuilo
The fire started on 6 July 2022 in Lucapa, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 29,783 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 13th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 2 in Angola in 2022, of 143.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Lucapa · 2016Lucapa · 2021Lucapa · 2018Lucapa · 2017
- Burnt area
- 29,783ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 6 Jul 2022 – 17 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 6 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 890
- in a single hotspot: 165 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 911MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 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: 15,167 ha in 2016, 14,650 ha in 2017, 11,149 ha in 2018, 5,326 ha in 2019, 7,956 ha in 2020, 15,362 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 27,327 ha that had burned before.
- 12,627 ha Lucapa fire, June 2016 18,140 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,560 ha Lucapa fire, July 2021 15,427 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,008 ha Lucapa fire, July 2018 10,436 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,848 ha Lucapa fire, June 2017 10,992 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,255 ha Lucapa fire, July 2020 7,088 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,918 ha Lucapa fire, July 2018 7,425 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 871 ha Lucapa fire, July 2019 7,247 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10 ha Lucapa fire, June 2016 7,053 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Lucapa where it started28,018 ha reached on 6 Jul1.5 %
-
1,944 ha reached on 11 Jul0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Jul | 30.8 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Jul | 30.1 °C | 21 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Jul | 30.5 °C | 22 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Jul | 31.1 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Jul | 31.6 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Jul | 31.1 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Jul | 30.5 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Jul | 30.4 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 14 Jul | 30.6 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Jul | 30.6 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 16 Jul | 29.8 °C | 27 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 17 Jul | 29.8 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Jul after | 29.9 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 19 Jul after | 30.9 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Jul after | 29.5 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Jul after | 30.4 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Jul after | 30.0 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Jul after | 30.6 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 24 Jul after | 32.3 °C | 16 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Jul after | 32.5 °C | 17 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 26 Jul after | 31.9 °C | 17 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 27 Jul after | 32.2 °C | 15 % | 40 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.
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 · 890Every 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 Lucapa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 July 2022 and 17 July 2022: 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 29,783 hectares (297.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lucapa (28,018 ha, 1.5 %); Cuilo (1,944 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 890 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.
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.