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Bundas fire, September 2016 Bundas

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2016, 12:03 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2016 in Bundas, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,632 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 79th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 103 in Angola in 2016, of 138.

Burnt area
5,632ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
19 Sept 2016 – 28 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Sept
2016
Heat detections
195
in a single hotspot: 221 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept28 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
52km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 3 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Bundas where it started
    5,675 ha reached on 19 Sept
    0.1 %

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)
19 Sept 33.3 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Sept 33.2 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
21 Sept 32.9 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Sept 33.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Sept 33.5 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Sept 35.6 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
25 Sept 35.8 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
26 Sept 35.1 °C 10 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
27 Sept 35.3 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
28 Sept 34.7 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Sept after 34.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Sept after 35.1 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
1 Oct after 36.4 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
2 Oct after 37.0 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Oct after 33.4 °C 19 % 34 km/h 2.3 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Sept 2016
After · 5 Oct 2016

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 · 195Every 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 Bundas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 September 2016 and 28 September 2016: 10 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 5,632 hectares (56.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bundas (5,675 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class Extreme.
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.