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Cuilo fire, 12 July 2018 Cuilo

Out · last detection 13 Jul 2018, 13:01 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2018 in Cuilo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,072 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 178th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 44 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Burnt area
7,072ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
12 Jul 2018 – 13 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Jul
2018
Heat detections
176
in a single hotspot: 354 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
15.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul13 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1213

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
40km/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

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,860 ha in 2016, 196 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,876 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuilo where it started
    7,123 ha reached on 12 Jul
    0.7 %

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 31.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Jul 30.8 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Jul after 30.7 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul after 31.3 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jul after 30.6 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jul after 29.5 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jul after 28.7 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jul after 29.9 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul after 30.4 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jul after 31.0 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jul after 31.0 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jul after 31.5 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2018
After · 20 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 · 176Every 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 13 July 2018: 2 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 7,072 hectares (70.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuilo (7,123 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.