Quimbele fire, 9 August 2024 Quimbele
The fire started on 9 August 2024 in Quimbele, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,724 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 11th largest in Uíge since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 5 in Angola in 2024, of 135.
- Burnt area
- 22,724ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 9 Aug 2024 – 24 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 1,426
- in a single hotspot: 167 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 18.7GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 1 Sept.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,679 ha in 2016, 15,591 ha in 2017, 7,946 ha in 2018, 12,953 ha in 2019, 11,795 ha in 2020, 11,082 ha in 2021, 6,103 ha in 2022, 13,864 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 21,702 ha that had burned before.
- 9,982 ha Quimbele fire, August 2019 13,198 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,318 ha Quimbele fire, August 2020 12,205 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,136 ha Quimbele fire, August 2021 6,868 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,481 ha Quimbele fire, August 2017 5,690 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,952 ha Quimbele fire, August 2023 7,368 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,873 ha Quimbele fire, August 2016 5,550 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 888 ha Quimbele fire, August 2020 5,929 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Quimbele where it started22,882 ha reached on 2 Aug3.3 %
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 | 30.2 °C | 40 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 3 Aug | 31.8 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Aug | 28.0 °C | 47 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Aug | 28.4 °C | 46 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Aug | 30.5 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Aug | 30.2 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Aug | 31.1 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 9 Aug | 32.3 °C | 28 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Aug | 31.4 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Aug | 29.4 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Aug | 28.2 °C | 46 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 13 Aug | 29.4 °C | 41 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 14 Aug | 27.7 °C | 47 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 15 Aug | 30.3 °C | 45 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Aug | 30.8 °C | 38 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Aug | 29.9 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Aug | 31.7 °C | 34 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Aug | 31.9 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Aug | 28.5 °C | 42 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Aug | 29.9 °C | 38 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Aug | 31.3 °C | 35 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Aug | 29.9 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Aug | 30.2 °C | 38 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 34 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Aug after | 33.0 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 47 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 30 Aug after | 29.3 °C | 52 % | 27 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Aug after | 29.3 °C | 48 % | 27 km/h | 2.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 1 Sept after | 31.2 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 6.1 mm | Low 5 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 24 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 210 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 106: 7.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,426Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,198 haQuimbeleAugust 2019 · 15 days · 2 km away
- 12,205 haQuimbele8 August 2020 · 17 days · 2 km away
- 49,780 haQuimbele14 August 2025 · 31 days · 6 km away
- 75,369 haQuimbele14 August 2026 · 27 days · 17 km away
- 12,096 haQuimbele25 August 2025 · 22 days · 19 km away
- 20,800 haBuengasAugust 2016 · 13 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Quimbele fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 August 2024 and 24 August 2024: 16 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 22,724 hectares (227.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Quimbele (22,882 ha, 3.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.
Report an error
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.