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Saurimo fire, 7 June 2019 Saurimo

Out · last detection 16 Jun 2019, 23:29 UTC

The fire started on 7 June 2019 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,011 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 64th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 65 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
9,011ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
7 Jun 2019 – 15 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Jun
2019
Heat detections
344
in a single hotspot: 246 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jun 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jun15 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
47km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,480 ha in 2016, 7,371 ha in 2017, 5,145 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,231 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    9,053 ha reached on 2 Jun
    0.4 %

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)
7 Jun 31.1 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Jun 32.2 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Jun 31.2 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Jun 30.2 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Jun 30.6 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Jun 30.1 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Jun 30.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Jun 30.9 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jun 30.6 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jun after 30.5 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jun after 31.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Jun after 30.8 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Jun after 30.3 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Jun after 31.0 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jun after 30.9 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jun after 30.0 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jun after 31.0 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jun after 31.3 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jun after 32.0 °C 20 % 34 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 · 31 May 2019
After · 22 Jun 2019

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 · 344Every 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 7 June 2019 and 15 June 2019: 9 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 9,011 hectares (90.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Saurimo (9,053 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 47 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.