How long did the Luena fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 August 2023 and 31 August 2023: 10 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 10,033 hectares (100.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Luena (10,091 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 · 2023-08-22 → 2023-08-31

Luena fire, August 2023 Luena

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2023, 11:46 UTC

The fire started on 22 August 2023 in Luena, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,033 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 30 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area: 10,033ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 22 Aug 2023 – 31 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 22 Aug; 2023
Heat detections: 381; in a single hotspot: 136 MW
Danger at start: 45; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 6.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Sept 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627282930311

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

49km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,041 ha in 2017, 3,456 ha in 2019, 38 ha in 2020, 5,642 ha in 2021, 3,706 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,148 ha that had burned before.

1,830 ha Luena fire, September 2022 5,241 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Luena where it started

10,091 ha reached on 23 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)
22 Aug	33.3 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
23 Aug	33.8 °C	12 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
24 Aug	34.4 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
25 Aug	34.1 °C	12 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
26 Aug	33.7 °C	15 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
27 Aug	33.2 °C	14 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
28 Aug	31.9 °C	20 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
29 Aug	29.3 °C	23 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
30 Aug	28.6 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
31 Aug	30.1 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
1 Sept after	31.9 °C	11 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
2 Sept after	32.6 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
3 Sept after	33.6 °C	13 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
4 Sept after	33.8 °C	12 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
5 Sept after	32.6 °C	14 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
6 Sept after	32.9 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
7 Sept after	32.5 °C	26 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Sept after	33.8 °C	8 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
9 Sept after	33.5 °C	11 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
10 Sept after	33.7 °C	12 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
11 Sept after	33.5 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
12 Sept after	32.8 °C	21 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
13 Sept after	32.8 °C	18 %	47 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 54
14 Sept after	32.9 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
15 Sept after	33.1 °C	19 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
16 Sept after	34.5 °C	16 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
17 Sept after	35.3 °C	13 %	26 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 · 15 Aug 2023

After · 7 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 · 381Every 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 Luena fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 August 2023 and 31 August 2023: 10 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 10,033 hectares (100.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Luena (10,091 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

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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.

Where it burned