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Luchazes fire, 4 August 2023 Luchazes

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2023, 12:54 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2023 in Luchazes, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,170 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 100th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 148 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
5,170ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
4 Aug 2023 – 22 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Aug
2023
Heat detections
244
in a single hotspot: 116 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug22 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

457891011121314151617181920212223

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
41km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,534 ha in 2017, 1,083 ha in 2018, 2,490 ha in 2019, 117 ha in 2020, 1,409 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,918 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luchazes where it started
    5,217 ha reached on 2 Aug
    0.1 %

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)
4 Aug 25.3 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug 24.6 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Aug 25.1 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Aug 25.8 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug 26.9 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Aug 27.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Aug 27.7 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Aug 28.1 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Aug 28.2 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Aug 28.0 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug 28.7 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug 29.9 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug 30.3 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug 31.3 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug 31.7 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug 31.3 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Aug 32.2 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug 33.8 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Aug 33.5 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug after 34.2 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Aug after 34.1 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Aug after 34.2 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Aug after 33.8 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Aug after 33.2 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
28 Aug after 29.8 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Aug after 28.1 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug after 27.2 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug after 29.1 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept after 31.3 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2023
After · 29 Aug 2023

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 · 244Every 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 4 August 2023 and 22 August 2023: 19 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 5,170 hectares (51.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luchazes (5,217 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 41 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.