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Saurimo fire, 27 June 2018 Saurimo

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2018, 23:34 UTC

The fire started on 27 June 2018 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,540 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 131th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 51 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Burnt area
6,540ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
27 Jun 2018 – 3 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Jun
2018
Heat detections
219
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jun3 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2829301234

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
46km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,591 ha in 2016, 5,204 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,202 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    6,566 ha reached on 28 Jun
    0.3 %

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)
27 Jun 31.0 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jun 30.3 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jun 30.0 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jun 30.7 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Jul 30.3 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Jul 31.2 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Jul 30.2 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Jul after 30.2 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Jul after 30.3 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Jul after 29.2 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jul after 29.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Jul after 29.8 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jul after 30.5 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jul after 30.6 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jul after 30.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Jul after 31.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Jul after 31.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jun 2018
After · 10 Jul 2018

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 · 219Every 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 Saurimo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 June 2018 and 3 July 2018: 7 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 6,540 hectares (65.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Saurimo (6,566 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.