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Saurimo fire, 10 July 2022 Saurimo

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2022, 12:17 UTC

The fire started on 10 July 2022 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,654 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 34 in Angola in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
9,654ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
10 Jul 2022 – 21 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Jul
2022
Heat detections
324
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
44km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,710 ha in 2017, 505 ha in 2018, 3,660 ha in 2019, 1,059 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,016 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    9,741 ha reached on 10 Jul
    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)
9 Jul 27.2 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Jul 27.6 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Jul 27.3 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jul 26.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Jul 26.2 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Jul 26.3 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jul 26.0 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Jul 26.7 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Jul 26.0 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jul 25.3 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jul 26.9 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jul 26.7 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul 28.2 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul after 27.9 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jul after 27.7 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Jul after 28.3 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul after 28.4 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul after 27.1 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jul after 27.4 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul after 27.4 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jul after 27.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul after 28.7 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Jul after 28.9 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Aug after 29.2 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Aug after 27.9 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Aug after 25.9 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.4 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jul 2022
After · 28 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 · 324Every 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 10 July 2022 and 21 July 2022: 12 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 9,654 hectares (96.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Saurimo (9,741 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.