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Cuvango fire, September 2020 Cuvelai, Cuvango

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2020, 12:09 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2020 in Cuvango, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,206 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 44th largest in Huíla since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 70 in Angola in 2020, of 123.

Burnt area
6,206ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
8 Sept 2020 – 11 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
8 Sept
2020
Heat detections
174
in a single hotspot: 640 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
6.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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
51km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,419 ha in 2016, 58 ha in 2017, 1,916 ha in 2018, 432 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,482 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuvelai
    4,252 ha reached on 8 Sept
    0.3 %
  2. Cuvango where it started
    1,986 ha reached on 5 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
8 Sept 30.7 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
9 Sept 30.8 °C 9 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Sept 30.2 °C 11 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Sept 30.0 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Sept after 30.2 °C 10 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Sept after 31.3 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Sept after 33.2 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Sept after 32.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Sept after 31.8 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Sept after 33.8 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Sept after 32.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Sept after 34.1 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Sept after 34.5 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Sept after 34.3 °C 15 % 23 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 · 1 Sept 2020
After · 18 Sept 2020

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 · 174Every 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 8 September 2020 and 11 September 2020: 4 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 6,206 hectares (62.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuvelai (4,252 ha, 0.3 %); Cuvango (1,986 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.