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Cuvango fire, July 2019 Cuvango

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2019, 00:21 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2019 in Cuvango, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,437 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 57th largest in Huíla since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 171 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
5,437ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
20 Jul 2019 – 26 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Jul
2019
Heat detections
202
in a single hotspot: 171 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul26 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
48km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 468 ha in 2016, 296 ha in 2017, 198 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 833 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuvango where it started
    5,489 ha reached on 20 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
20 Jul 27.4 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Jul 28.2 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Jul 29.0 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Jul 29.4 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Jul 29.5 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Jul 29.0 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Jul 28.3 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Jul after 28.5 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Jul after 28.7 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Jul after 29.8 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Jul after 29.3 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Jul after 30.5 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Aug after 30.1 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Aug after 30.5 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Aug after 32.0 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Aug after 28.3 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Aug after 30.2 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2019
After · 2 Aug 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 · 202Every 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 Cuvango fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 July 2019 and 26 July 2019: 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 5,437 hectares (54.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuvango (5,489 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class 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

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.