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Cuanhama fire, August 2019 Cuanhama

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2019, 12:15 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2019 in Cuanhama, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 34,108 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Cunene since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 4 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cuanhama · 2017Cuanhama · 2017Cuanhama · 2022Cuanhama · 2024

Burnt area
34,108ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
14 Aug 2019 – 15 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Aug
2019
Heat detections
1,287
in a single hotspot: 358 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
641MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug15 Sept
15 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

14 Aug 2019 · 18 MW · 3 16 Aug 2019 · 0 MW · 1 19 Aug 2019 · 21 MW · 1 20 Aug 2019 · 9 MW · 3 21 Aug 2019 · 1,326 MW · 61 22 Aug 2019 · 3,117 MW · 110 23 Aug 2019 · 759 MW · 96 24 Aug 2019 · 503 MW · 71 25 Aug 2019 · 333 MW · 30 26 Aug 2019 · 209 MW · 31 27 Aug 2019 · 2,975 MW · 129 28 Aug 2019 · 489 MW · 41 29 Aug 2019 · 245 MW · 34 30 Aug 2019 · 852 MW · 63 31 Aug 2019 · 392 MW · 52 1 Sept 2019 · 100 MW · 28 2 Sept 2019 · 87 MW · 18 3 Sept 2019 · 85 MW · 27 4 Sept 2019 · 80 MW · 18 5 Sept 2019 · 190 MW · 24 6 Sept 2019 · 2,840 MW · 169 7 Sept 2019 · 141 MW · 31 8 Sept 2019 · 241 MW · 52 9 Sept 2019 · 164 MW · 19 10 Sept 2019 · 110 MW · 10 11 Sept 2019 · 471 MW · 51 12 Sept 2019 · 3,424 MW · 98 13 Sept 2019 · 49 MW · 14 14 Sept 2019 · 1 MW · 1 15 Sept 2019 · 12 MW · 1
14 Aug 22 Aug 27 Aug 1 Sept 6 Sept 11 Sept 12 Sept

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
59km/h · peak gust
3%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,128 ha in 2016, 13,948 ha in 2017, 1,449 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,378 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 22% of the area of London (341 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuanhama where it started
    34,208 ha reached on 14 Aug
    1.7 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
14 Aug 32.1 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Aug 31.7 °C 10 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Aug 28.9 °C 13 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
17 Aug 28.6 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Aug 30.1 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Aug 29.7 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Aug 28.9 °C 11 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
21 Aug 29.2 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Aug 28.3 °C 16 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
23 Aug 28.1 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
24 Aug 27.8 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
25 Aug 29.4 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Aug 30.4 °C 6 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Aug 31.7 °C 6 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Aug 33.3 °C 3 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Aug 34.4 °C 3 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
30 Aug 35.0 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Aug 32.6 °C 7 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
1 Sept 32.5 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
2 Sept 33.2 °C 7 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Sept 34.3 °C 7 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
4 Sept 34.9 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
5 Sept 35.7 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Sept 36.7 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Sept 34.5 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
8 Sept 30.2 °C 14 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
9 Sept 28.9 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Sept 30.4 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Sept 32.2 °C 6 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Sept 32.4 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Sept 33.3 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Sept 35.5 °C 6 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Sept 36.7 °C 5 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
16 Sept after 35.6 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
17 Sept after 35.0 °C 7 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
18 Sept after 34.8 °C 7 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
19 Sept after 35.7 °C 7 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
20 Sept after 35.2 °C 7 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
21 Sept after 36.4 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Sept after 36.6 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
23 Sept after 35.2 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
24 Sept after 36.0 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
25 Sept after 36.2 °C 6 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Aug 2019
After · 22 Sept 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 · 1,287Every 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 Cuanhama fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 August 2019 to 15 September 2019 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 August 2019 to 14 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 34,108 hectares (341.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuanhama (34,208 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 14 September 2019 → 15 September 2019.
  2. Start date: 20 August 2019 → 14 August 2019.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 August 2019 to 14 September 2019. 1,287 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.