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Luchazes fire, 3 September 2022 Luchazes

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2022, 11:45 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2022 in Luchazes, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,445 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 52th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 74 in Angola in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
6,445ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
3 Sept 2022 – 13 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Sept
2022
Heat detections
268
in a single hotspot: 242 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Sept 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

367891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
43km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 385 ha in 2017, 4,699 ha in 2019, 624 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,826 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luchazes where it started
    6,491 ha reached on 3 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
3 Sept 29.6 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept 31.4 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Sept 32.6 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Sept 33.6 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Sept 33.6 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Sept 32.2 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Sept 31.5 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Sept 32.1 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Sept 32.9 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Sept 33.3 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Sept 33.2 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Sept after 31.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Sept after 31.5 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Sept after 30.9 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Sept after 32.0 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept after 34.0 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Sept after 31.9 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept after 31.7 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
21 Sept after 31.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
22 Sept after 32.0 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Sept after 34.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Aug 2022
After · 20 Sept 2022

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 · 268Every 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 3 September 2022 and 13 September 2022: 11 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 6,445 hectares (64.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luchazes (6,491 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.