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AO · Angola · –

Cuito Cuanavale fire, 4 September 2017 Cuito Cuanavale

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2017, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2017 in Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,894 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 44th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 504 with a page). Number 11 in Angola in 2017, of 158.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nancova · 2021Mavinga · 2022Mavinga · 2021Mavinga · 2025

Burnt area
16,894ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
4 Sept 2017 – 27 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2017
Heat detections
687
in a single hotspot: 157 MW
Danger at start
68
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
331MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept27 Sept
27 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

4 Sept 2017 · 18 MW · 3 6 Sept 2017 · 862 MW · 35 7 Sept 2017 · 502 MW · 35 8 Sept 2017 · 532 MW · 29 9 Sept 2017 · 224 MW · 17 10 Sept 2017 · 94 MW · 10 11 Sept 2017 · 446 MW · 29 12 Sept 2017 · 190 MW · 36 13 Sept 2017 · 176 MW · 39 14 Sept 2017 · 348 MW · 31 15 Sept 2017 · 239 MW · 18 16 Sept 2017 · 410 MW · 35 17 Sept 2017 · 1,087 MW · 55 18 Sept 2017 · 361 MW · 51 19 Sept 2017 · 176 MW · 29 20 Sept 2017 · 159 MW · 27 21 Sept 2017 · 106 MW · 13 22 Sept 2017 · 547 MW · 38 23 Sept 2017 · 135 MW · 33 24 Sept 2017 · 350 MW · 42 25 Sept 2017 · 256 MW · 22 26 Sept 2017 · 290 MW · 36 27 Sept 2017 · 116 MW · 24
4 Sept 10 Sept 17 Sept 25 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

36°high
49km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.8 mm on 6 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 11% of the area of London (169 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. Cuito Cuanavale where it started
    17,066 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.5 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)

Started with 60 days without rain: 84 % of the area in Angola

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
4 Sept 30.3 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
5 Sept 32.3 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Sept 33.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Sept 33.3 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
8 Sept 33.2 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
9 Sept 32.9 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
10 Sept 33.0 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
11 Sept 33.2 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
12 Sept 33.8 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Sept 34.1 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
14 Sept 34.5 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
15 Sept 34.3 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
16 Sept 34.9 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
17 Sept 34.7 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
18 Sept 36.4 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
19 Sept 35.2 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 88
20 Sept 34.4 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 90
21 Sept 34.2 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
22 Sept 34.6 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
23 Sept 34.3 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
24 Sept 35.1 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
25 Sept 35.7 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
26 Sept 36.4 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Sept 34.2 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 58
28 Sept after 33.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 48
29 Sept after 32.1 °C 17 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
30 Sept after 31.9 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
1 Oct after 33.2 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
2 Oct after 33.9 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
3 Oct after 36.2 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
4 Oct after 35.7 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
5 Oct after 34.4 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Oct after 29.4 °C 32 % 34 km/h 4.8 mm Very high 40

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 67.8, a minimum humidity of 18% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 24.

FWI at the start 67.8
Minimum humidity 18 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Nancova fire, August 2021
22,260 ha 21 days FWI 64.7 Min. humidity 18 % 126 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

12 days
median duration
7,772 ha
median area
25 %
went past 10,000 ha
2.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 1 of 24 had it)

It was 2.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 24 days, against 12 days.

Only 1 of its 24 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 23 of 24, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.5 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

4.8 mmfirst rain
6 Oct9 days after it ended
49km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 Sept, and on 6 Oct 4.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 1 of 24, with a median of 2.5 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2017
After · 4 Oct 2017

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 · 687Every 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 Cuito Cuanavale fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 September 2017 to 27 September 2017 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 September 2017 to 27 September 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 16,894 hectares (168.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuito Cuanavale (17,066 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 90, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 24. Their median duration was 12 days and their median area 7,772 ha; 25 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 1 of its 24 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 23 of 24, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.5 mm.

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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 6 September 2017 → 4 September 2017.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

Report an error
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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 September 2017 to 27 September 2017. 687 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 2015, 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.