How long did the Luchazes fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2023 and 23 September 2023: 23 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 5,520 hectares (55.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Luchazes (5,562 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.

AO · Angola · 2023-09-01 → 2023-09-23

Luchazes fire, 1 September 2023 Luchazes

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2023, 11:32 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2023 in Luchazes, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,520 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 84th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 127 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area: 5,520ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 1 Sept 2023 – 23 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 1 Sept; 2023
Heat detections: 260; in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Sept 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept23 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011121314151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

49km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,945 ha in 2017, 1,035 ha in 2019, 246 ha in 2021, 1,306 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,289 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Luchazes where it started

5,562 ha reached on 1 Sept

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)
1 Sept	31.6 °C	7 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
2 Sept	32.7 °C	8 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
3 Sept	33.3 °C	8 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
4 Sept	32.7 °C	11 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
5 Sept	32.5 °C	13 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
6 Sept	33.6 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
7 Sept	33.7 °C	15 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
8 Sept	33.6 °C	10 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
9 Sept	33.2 °C	8 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
10 Sept	33.4 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
11 Sept	34.6 °C	11 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
12 Sept	32.2 °C	13 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
13 Sept	32.7 °C	14 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
14 Sept	32.7 °C	18 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
15 Sept	32.8 °C	15 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
16 Sept	34.2 °C	10 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Sept	35.3 °C	9 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
18 Sept	35.9 °C	13 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
19 Sept	34.4 °C	14 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
20 Sept	34.1 °C	16 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
21 Sept	34.7 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
22 Sept	34.4 °C	14 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
23 Sept	36.1 °C	11 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
24 Sept after	33.7 °C	19 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
25 Sept after	34.2 °C	20 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Sept after	33.6 °C	15 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
27 Sept after	32.5 °C	14 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
28 Sept after	33.1 °C	15 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
29 Sept after	35.2 °C	16 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
30 Sept after	32.6 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.6 mm	Very high 43
1 Oct after	35.0 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
2 Oct after	33.5 °C	22 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
3 Oct after	34.3 °C	18 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Aug 2023

After · 30 Sept 2023

Before After

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 · 260Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Luchazes fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2023 and 23 September 2023: 23 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 5,520 hectares (55.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Luchazes (5,562 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.

Where it burned