Skip to content
worldfires
AO · Angola · →

Bundas fire, August 2019 Bundas

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2019, 11:13 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2019 in Bundas, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,456 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 86th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 169 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
5,456ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
16 Aug 2019 – 27 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Aug
2019
Heat detections
236
in a single hotspot: 169 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
50km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 369 ha in 2016, 482 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Bundas where it started
    5,487 ha reached on 16 Aug
    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)
16 Aug 26.6 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Aug 27.1 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug 28.0 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug 27.5 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug 27.1 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug 27.4 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Aug 26.7 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug 26.0 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Aug 26.9 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Aug 28.4 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug 30.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug 31.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug after 32.3 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Aug after 31.0 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Aug after 34.1 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Aug after 34.3 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept after 30.6 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Sept after 32.4 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Sept after 32.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Sept after 33.4 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Sept after 33.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Sept after 34.4 °C 17 % 41 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 · 9 Aug 2019
After · 3 Sept 2019

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 · 236Every 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 16 August 2019 and 27 August 2019: 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 5,456 hectares (54.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bundas (5,487 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.