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AO · Angola · →

Cuilo fire, 12 July 2018 Cuilo

Out · last detection 18 Jul 2018, 13:07 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2018 in Cuilo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,591 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 147th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 35 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Burnt area
7,591ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
12 Jul 2018 – 18 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Jul
2018
Heat detections
191
in a single hotspot: 358 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
14.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul18 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

121314161718

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
48km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,440 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuilo where it started
    7,649 ha reached on 9 Jul
    0.8 %

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)
12 Jul 31.1 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Jul 30.5 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Jul 30.6 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul 31.0 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jul 30.3 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jul 29.3 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Jul 28.5 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jul after 29.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul after 30.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jul after 30.7 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jul after 30.7 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jul after 31.3 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jul after 29.6 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Jul after 28.3 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jul after 30.1 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jul after 30.4 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Jul after 30.4 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2018
After · 25 Jul 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 · 191Every 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 Cuilo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 July 2018 and 18 July 2018: 7 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 7,591 hectares (75.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuilo (7,649 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.