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Luquembo fire, July 2023 Luquembo, Quirima

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2023, 12:49 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2023 in Luquembo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,020 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 22th largest in Malanje since 2016 (of 127 with a page). Number 31 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Luquembo · 2026Luquembo · 2026Quirima · 2026

Burnt area
10,020ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
28 Jul 2023 – 18 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Jul
2023
Heat detections
481
in a single hotspot: 225 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
467MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul18 Aug
18 Aug 2023

How it evolved, day by day

28 Jul 2023 · 397 MW · 18 29 Jul 2023 · 84 MW · 10 31 Jul 2023 · 115 MW · 12 1 Aug 2023 · 1,366 MW · 62 2 Aug 2023 · 436 MW · 49 3 Aug 2023 · 213 MW · 11 4 Aug 2023 · 748 MW · 29 5 Aug 2023 · 2,211 MW · 78 6 Aug 2023 · 1,652 MW · 57 7 Aug 2023 · 189 MW · 28 8 Aug 2023 · 241 MW · 25 9 Aug 2023 · 854 MW · 39 10 Aug 2023 · 196 MW · 17 11 Aug 2023 · 113 MW · 8 12 Aug 2023 · 22 MW · 4 13 Aug 2023 · 14 MW · 3 14 Aug 2023 · 16 MW · 5 15 Aug 2023 · 262 MW · 7 16 Aug 2023 · 85 MW · 7 18 Aug 2023 · 122 MW · 12
28 Jul 1 Aug 4 Aug 5 Aug 7 Aug 10 Aug 13 Aug 16 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
40km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,399 ha in 2016, 44 ha in 2019, 3,435 ha in 2020, 167 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,750 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.3% of the area of London (100 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Luquembo where it started
    6,501 ha reached on 28 Jul
    0.6 %
  2. Quirima
    3,583 ha reached on 28 Jul
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
28 Jul 31.1 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul 31.5 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul 31.8 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul 30.8 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Aug 30.4 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Aug 30.7 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Aug 30.4 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Aug 30.4 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Aug 29.2 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Aug 29.8 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Aug 30.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Aug 30.6 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Aug 31.2 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Aug 32.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug 32.6 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Aug 32.8 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug 32.3 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Aug 31.6 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Aug 32.0 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Aug 33.4 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Aug 32.8 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug 33.2 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug after 34.4 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug after 33.3 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Aug after 32.4 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Aug after 33.6 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug after 34.5 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Aug after 34.3 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug after 32.5 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug after 31.1 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug after 35.4 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Aug after 33.3 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2023
After · 25 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 6 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10156 µg/m³
Optical depth1.01
311234567891011121314
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 · 481Every 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 Luquembo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 July 2023 to 18 August 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 August 2023 to 11 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,020 hectares (100.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Luquembo (6,501 ha, 0.6 %); Quirima (3,583 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 11 August 2023 → 18 August 2023.
  2. Start date: 2 August 2023 → 28 July 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 August 2023 to 11 August 2023. 481 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.