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Cuangar fire, 19 June 2023 Cuangar

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2023, 11:51 UTC

The fire started on 19 June 2023 in Cuangar, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,792 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 388th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 75 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
6,792ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
19 Jun 2023 – 4 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Jun
2023
Heat detections
256
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jul 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jun4 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526272829301234

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
42km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,183 ha in 2016, 639 ha in 2017, 1,677 ha in 2018, 574 ha in 2019, 527 ha in 2020, 4,017 ha in 2021, 186 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,642 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuangar where it started
    6,814 ha reached on 19 Jun
    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)
19 Jun 27.3 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Jun 27.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Jun 27.4 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Jun 27.7 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Jun 27.2 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Jun 25.5 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jun 25.1 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jun 26.8 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jun 25.5 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jun 24.0 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jun 25.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jun 26.1 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Jul 26.7 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Jul 26.2 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Jul 26.0 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Jul 24.9 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Jul after 25.1 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Jul after 24.8 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jul after 25.3 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jul after 24.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Jul after 24.8 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Jul after 18.2 °C 20 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jul after 18.5 °C 15 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Jul after 20.3 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Jul after 22.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Jul after 25.6 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jun 2023
After · 11 Jul 2023

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 · 256Every 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 19 June 2023 and 4 July 2023: 16 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 6,792 hectares (67.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuangar (6,814 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.