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Saurimo fire, 17 July 2020 Saurimo

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2020, 12:04 UTC

The fire started on 17 July 2020 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,240 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 211th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 109 in Angola in 2020, of 123.

Burnt area
5,240ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
17 Jul 2020 – 21 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Jul
2020
Heat detections
150
in a single hotspot: 433 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
12.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
45km/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

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,699 ha in 2016, 2,382 ha in 2017, 869 ha in 2018, 2,231 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,593 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    5,266 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.2 %

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)
17 Jul 28.1 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jul 26.8 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jul 27.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul 29.0 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Jul 29.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Jul after 30.6 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Jul after 30.3 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Jul after 30.4 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jul after 30.2 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jul after 30.1 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jul after 29.8 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jul after 29.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jul after 30.7 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul after 31.7 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jul after 31.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jul 2020
After · 28 Jul 2020

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 · 150Every 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 17 July 2020 and 21 July 2020: 5 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 5,240 hectares (52.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Saurimo (5,266 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.