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Quimbele fire, 5 August 2023 Quimbele

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2023, 13:03 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2023 in Quimbele, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,337 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 56th largest in Uíge since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 136 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
5,337ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
5 Aug 2023 – 12 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Aug
2023
Heat detections
181
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

5789101112

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
31km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 989 ha in 2016, 466 ha in 2017, 1,723 ha in 2018, 1,851 ha in 2020, 693 ha in 2021, 3,748 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,540 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Quimbele where it started
    5,369 ha reached on 2 Aug
    0.8 %

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)
5 Aug 31.9 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Aug 33.1 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug 34.1 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 31.5 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Aug 32.1 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug 32.2 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
11 Aug 33.6 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Aug 33.2 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug after 33.9 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug after 34.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Aug after 32.8 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Aug after 34.4 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Aug after 32.9 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug after 31.0 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
19 Aug after 32.6 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
20 Aug after 31.9 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
21 Aug after 31.7 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Aug after 34.4 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2023
After · 19 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.

Detections table · 181Every 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 Quimbele fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2023 and 12 August 2023: 8 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 5,337 hectares (53.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Quimbele (5,369 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.