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Luena fire, 9 August 2024 Luena

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2024, 23:24 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2024 in Luena, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,113 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 11 in Angola in 2024, of 135.

Burnt area
14,113ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
9 Aug 2024 – 26 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Aug
2024
Heat detections
763
in a single hotspot: 174 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
10.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

9101112131415161718192021222324252627

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
46km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 245 ha in 2016, 1,763 ha in 2017, 35 ha in 2018, 1,590 ha in 2019, 1,825 ha in 2020, 6,768 ha in 2021, 3,591 ha in 2022, 4,263 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,965 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luena where it started
    14,218 ha reached on 2 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
2 Aug 29.6 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Aug 29.7 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Aug 31.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug 32.3 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug 31.9 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Aug 31.8 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Aug 31.7 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Aug 30.9 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Aug 31.3 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Aug 31.1 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Aug 31.3 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Aug 31.1 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Aug 31.7 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug 31.6 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Aug 31.1 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Aug 30.8 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Aug 31.0 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Aug 30.2 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
20 Aug 30.8 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Aug 30.6 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Aug 30.4 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Aug 30.9 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Aug 30.1 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Aug 30.6 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Aug 31.2 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
27 Aug after 31.4 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Aug after 32.9 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Aug after 33.9 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Aug after 34.1 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Aug after 32.1 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Sept after 30.7 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Sept after 29.8 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
3 Sept after 29.6 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Sept after 29.3 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Sept after 30.9 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Sept after 32.5 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Sept after 33.7 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Sept after 34.4 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Sept after 34.5 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2024
After · 2 Sept 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 14 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM10129 µg/m³
Optical depth0.99
7891011121314151617181920212223242526272829
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 763Every 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 9 August 2024 and 26 August 2024: 18 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 14,113 hectares (141.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luena (14,218 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.