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Saurimo fire, 21 July 2020 Saurimo

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2020, 11:14 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2020 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,316 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 94th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 47 in Angola in 2020, of 123.

Burnt area
7,316ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
21 Jul 2020 – 29 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 Jul
2020
Heat detections
191
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul29 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526272829

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
44km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,937 ha in 2016, 4,335 ha in 2017, 703 ha in 2018, 2,156 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,232 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    7,347 ha reached on 21 Jul
    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)
21 Jul 31.1 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jul 31.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jul 31.3 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Jul 31.4 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Jul 31.3 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jul 31.2 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jul 30.8 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Jul 30.8 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Jul 31.6 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jul after 32.9 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jul after 32.5 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Aug after 33.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Aug after 32.2 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Aug after 32.3 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Aug after 32.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug after 32.6 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug after 33.9 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Aug after 33.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug after 32.8 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2020
After · 5 Aug 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 · 191Every 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 21 July 2020 and 29 July 2020: 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 7,316 hectares (73.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Saurimo (7,347 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.