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Cuangar fire, 6 September 2016 Cuangar

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

The fire started on 6 September 2016 in Cuangar, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,219 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 270th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 42 in Angola in 2016, of 138.

Burnt area
8,219ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
6 Sept 2016 – 11 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Sept
2016
Heat detections
338
in a single hotspot: 377 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
9.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
39km/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

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

What happened to each town

  1. Cuangar where it started
    8,253 ha reached on 3 Sept
    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)
6 Sept 35.7 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Sept 36.4 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Sept 36.3 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Sept 35.7 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Sept 36.9 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Sept 37.2 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Sept after 36.1 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Sept after 36.1 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Sept after 36.8 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Sept after 35.1 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Sept after 33.4 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
17 Sept after 33.7 °C 5 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Sept after 33.2 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
19 Sept after 33.6 °C 7 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
20 Sept after 35.8 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
21 Sept after 35.9 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Aug 2016
After · 18 Sept 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 · 338Every 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 Cuangar fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2016 and 11 September 2016: 6 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 8,219 hectares (82.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuangar (8,253 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.