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Cuangar fire, September 2019 Cuangar

Out · last detection 3 Oct 2019, 13:18 UTC

The fire started on 28 September 2019 in Cuangar, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,979 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 289th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 81 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
7,979ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
28 Sept 2019 – 2 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Sept
2019
Heat detections
310
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Sept2 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

282930123

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
46km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 10 Oct.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 113 ha in 2016, 3,595 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuangar where it started
    8,023 ha reached on 28 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)
28 Sept 32.4 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Sept 34.2 °C 5 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 Sept 34.1 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Oct 33.4 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
2 Oct 35.5 °C 5 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
3 Oct after 36.3 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Oct after 37.0 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
5 Oct after 36.3 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
6 Oct after 37.7 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Oct after 37.9 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
8 Oct after 39.3 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
9 Oct after 37.0 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 69
10 Oct after 34.2 °C 21 % 37 km/h 3.3 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Sept 2019
After · 9 Oct 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 · 310Every 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 28 September 2019 and 2 October 2019: 5 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 7,979 hectares (79.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuangar (8,023 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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.