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Saurimo fire, 27 June 2022 Saurimo

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2022, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 27 June 2022 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,961 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 103th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 59 in Angola in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
6,961ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
27 Jun 2022 – 4 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Jun
2022
Heat detections
183
in a single hotspot: 183 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jun4 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

272829301234

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
45km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 58 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,981 ha in 2016, 984 ha in 2017, 926 ha in 2018, 1,135 ha in 2019, 2,426 ha in 2020, 70 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,110 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    6,993 ha reached on 23 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 31.1 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jun 29.8 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Jun 29.7 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Jun 30.6 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Jul 31.6 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Jul 32.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Jul 32.1 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Jul 32.4 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Jul after 32.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Jul after 31.7 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jul after 31.1 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jul after 32.2 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Jul after 32.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Jul after 32.7 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jul after 32.8 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Jul after 31.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Jul after 31.9 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Jul after 32.3 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jun 2022
After · 11 Jul 2022

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 · 183Every 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 2022 and 4 July 2022: 8 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 6,961 hectares (69.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Saurimo (6,993 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.