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Luchazes fire, 9 August 2019 Luchazes

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2019, 12:03 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2019 in Luchazes, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,551 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 38 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
12,551ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
9 Aug 2019 – 20 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Aug
2019
Heat detections
561
in a single hotspot: 343 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
17.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181920

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
50km/h · peak gust
9%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: 6,416 ha in 2016, 139 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Luchazes where it started
    12,677 ha reached on 9 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
9 Aug 33.0 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Aug 31.0 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Aug 30.1 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Aug 30.6 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug 30.8 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Aug 31.7 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Aug 30.0 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Aug 27.4 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Aug 27.7 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Aug 28.6 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug 28.4 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Aug 27.7 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Aug after 28.0 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Aug after 27.0 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Aug after 26.6 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Aug after 27.3 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Aug after 28.5 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Aug after 31.0 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Aug after 32.5 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Aug after 33.1 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug after 34.2 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Aug after 34.1 °C 18 % 34 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 · 2 Aug 2019
After · 27 Aug 2019

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 · 561Every 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 Luchazes fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 August 2019 and 20 August 2019: 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 12,551 hectares (125.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luchazes (12,677 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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

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.