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Cuvelai fire, May 2019 Cuvelai

Out · last detection 21 May 2019, 12:09 UTC

The fire started on 15 May 2019 in Cuvelai, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,188 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 92th largest in Cunene since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 187 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
5,188ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
15 May 2019 – 21 May 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 May
2019
Heat detections
177
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 May 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 May21 May

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
45km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 274 ha in 2016, 550 ha in 2017, 7 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 601 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuvelai where it started
    5,208 ha reached on 15 May
    0.3 %

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)
15 May 31.9 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 May 32.8 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 May 31.1 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 May 31.4 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 May 31.8 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 May 31.2 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 May 31.9 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 May after 30.5 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 May after 31.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 May after 30.2 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 May after 28.4 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 May after 27.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 May after 27.3 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 May after 28.5 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 May after 30.0 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 May after 29.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 May after 30.3 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 May 2019
After · 28 May 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 · 177Every 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 Cuvelai fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 May 2019 and 21 May 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 5,188 hectares (51.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuvelai (5,208 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.