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Marimba fire, July 2024 Marimba

Out · last detection 8 Jul 2024, 00:19 UTC

The fire started on 4 July 2024 in Marimba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,533 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 90th largest in Malanje since 2016 (of 127 with a page). Number 103 in Angola in 2024, of 135.

Burnt area
5,533ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
4 Jul 2024 – 7 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Jul
2024
Heat detections
155
in a single hotspot: 171 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jul 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jul7 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

45678

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
28km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,285 ha in 2016, 2,291 ha in 2017, 944 ha in 2018, 1,894 ha in 2019, 402 ha in 2020, 2,090 ha in 2021, 1,529 ha in 2022, 1,859 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,463 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Marimba where it started
    5,574 ha reached on 3 Jul
    0.9 %

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)
4 Jul 33.8 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Jul 33.6 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Jul 33.1 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Jul 33.0 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Jul after 31.9 °C 28 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Jul after 32.6 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Jul after 33.5 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Jul after 33.4 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Jul after 32.9 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Jul after 32.3 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Jul after 34.3 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Jul after 32.5 °C 18 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jul after 32.4 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Jul after 32.5 °C 24 % 27 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 · 27 Jun 2024
After · 14 Jul 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 8 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 159 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 111: 7.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak159 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10227 µg/m³
Optical depth1.32
2345678910
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 · 155Every 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 Marimba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 July 2024 and 7 July 2024: 4 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 5,533 hectares (55.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Marimba (5,574 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.