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Cuangar fire, 2 October 2018 Cuangar

Out · last detection 11 Oct 2018, 13:12 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2018 in Cuangar, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,179 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 617th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 92 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Burnt area
5,179ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
2 Oct 2018 – 10 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Oct
2018
Heat detections
158
in a single hotspot: 120 MW
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct10 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
53km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 859 ha in 2016, 744 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuangar where it started
    5,191 ha reached on 2 Oct
    0.3 %

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)
2 Oct 33.8 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
3 Oct 35.6 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
4 Oct 36.5 °C 5 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
5 Oct 37.5 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
6 Oct 36.1 °C 10 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
7 Oct 36.2 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
8 Oct 35.8 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
9 Oct 35.5 °C 8 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
10 Oct 36.3 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
11 Oct after 36.2 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
12 Oct after 37.0 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Oct after 36.1 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Oct after 35.5 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
15 Oct after 36.5 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
16 Oct after 37.7 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
17 Oct after 38.3 °C 5 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Oct after 37.3 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
19 Oct after 38.0 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
20 Oct after 36.9 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Sept 2018
After · 17 Oct 2018

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 · 158Every 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 2 October 2018 and 10 October 2018: 9 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 5,179 hectares (51.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuangar (5,191 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 78, class Very 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.