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AO · Angola · →

Luena fire, 27 August 2021 Luena

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2021, 12:35 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2021 in Luena, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,824 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 70th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 94 in Angola in 2021, of 126.

Burnt area
5,824ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
27 Aug 2021 – 2 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Aug
2021
Heat detections
209
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Sept 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2728293031123

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
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 331 ha in 2016, 655 ha in 2017, 142 ha in 2018, 712 ha in 2019, 911 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,398 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luena where it started
    5,867 ha reached on 27 Aug
    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)
27 Aug 33.1 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Aug 33.8 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug 31.4 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Aug 31.5 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Aug 30.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept 31.2 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept 31.4 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept after 29.9 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Sept after 31.8 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Sept after 32.7 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Sept after 32.9 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept after 33.5 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Sept after 33.1 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept after 32.2 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Sept after 31.4 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept after 29.3 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Sept after 29.5 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2021
After · 9 Sept 2021

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 · 209Every 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 Luena fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 August 2021 and 2 September 2021: 7 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 5,824 hectares (58.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luena (5,867 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.