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Cuango fire, 1 July 2020 Cuango

Out · last detection 8 Jul 2020, 12:48 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2020 in Cuango, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,524 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 149th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 44 in Angola in 2020, of 123.

Burnt area
7,524ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
1 Jul 2020 – 8 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Jul
2020
Heat detections
240
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul8 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1345678

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
38km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,950 ha in 2016, 1,864 ha in 2017, 3,359 ha in 2018, 4,818 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,956 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuango where it started
    7,358 ha reached on 1 Jul
    1.1 %

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)
1 Jul 32.5 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Jul 32.7 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Jul 32.2 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Jul 32.6 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Jul 32.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Jul 31.5 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Jul 32.0 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Jul 32.5 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jul after 32.5 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Jul after 32.0 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jul after 32.6 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Jul after 31.0 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Jul after 33.6 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Jul after 32.7 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Jul after 32.9 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Jul after 32.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jul after 30.9 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Jul after 29.8 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jun 2020
After · 15 Jul 2020

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 · 240Every 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 Cuango fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 July 2020 and 8 July 2020: 8 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 7,524 hectares (75.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuango (7,358 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
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.