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Bundas fire, 11 August 2024 Bundas

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2024, 12:29 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2024 in Bundas, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,057 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 13th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 26 in Angola in 2024, of 135.

Burnt area
10,057ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
11 Aug 2024 – 20 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Aug
2024
Heat detections
407
in a single hotspot: 259 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
47km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,643 ha in 2017, 1,070 ha in 2018, 438 ha in 2019, 1,101 ha in 2020, 4,097 ha in 2021, 808 ha in 2022, 2,670 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,112 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bundas where it started
    10,052 ha reached on 4 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
4 Aug 31.8 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug 32.7 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Aug 32.2 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Aug 32.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Aug 31.9 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Aug 31.3 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Aug 31.6 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Aug 31.5 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Aug 31.6 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Aug 31.8 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Aug 32.2 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Aug 32.0 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Aug 31.7 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Aug 31.1 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Aug 31.2 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Aug 30.7 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Aug 31.2 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Aug after 31.0 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Aug after 30.8 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Aug after 31.2 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Aug after 30.5 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Aug after 30.9 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Aug after 31.4 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Aug after 31.8 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Aug after 33.5 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Aug after 34.3 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Aug after 34.6 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Aug after 32.5 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Sept after 30.9 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Sept after 29.9 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Sept after 29.8 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Sept after 29.5 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Sept after 31.3 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Sept after 32.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2024
After · 27 Aug 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 14 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10129 µg/m³
Optical depth0.99
91011121314151617181920212223
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 407Every 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 11 August 2024 and 20 August 2024: 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 10,057 hectares (100.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bundas (10,052 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.