Skip to content
worldfires
en
AO · Angola · →

Cuvelai fire, 30 May 2019 Cuanhama, Cuvelai

Out · last detection 20 Jun 2019, 12:47 UTC

The fire started on 30 May 2019 in Cuvelai, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,723 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 72th largest in Cunene since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 160 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cuvelai · 2019Cuvelai · 2019Cuanhama · 2020Cuanhama · 2019

Burnt area
5,723ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
30 May 2019 – 20 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
30 May
2019
Heat detections
212
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
68MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 May20 Jun
20 Jun 2019

How it evolved, day by day

30 May 2019 · 61 MW · 6 31 May 2019 · 21 MW · 4 1 Jun 2019 · 392 MW · 45 2 Jun 2019 · 74 MW · 10 3 Jun 2019 · 19 MW · 4 4 Jun 2019 · 2 MW · 3 5 Jun 2019 · 37 MW · 7 6 Jun 2019 · 132 MW · 18 7 Jun 2019 · 10 MW · 3 8 Jun 2019 · 125 MW · 10 9 Jun 2019 · 36 MW · 7 10 Jun 2019 · 66 MW · 19 11 Jun 2019 · 56 MW · 8 12 Jun 2019 · 53 MW · 7 13 Jun 2019 · 9 MW · 2 14 Jun 2019 · 9 MW · 2 15 Jun 2019 · 167 MW · 23 16 Jun 2019 · 92 MW · 12 17 Jun 2019 · 41 MW · 6 18 Jun 2019 · 46 MW · 7 19 Jun 2019 · 32 MW · 7 20 Jun 2019 · 6 MW · 2
30 May 1 Jun 3 Jun 7 Jun 11 Jun 15 Jun 19 Jun

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
52km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 297 ha in 2016, 126 ha in 2017, 9 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.6% of the area of London (57 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. Cuanhama
    3,566 ha reached on 3 Jun
    0.2 %
  2. Cuvelai where it started
    2,178 ha reached on 30 May
    0.1 %

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.

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)
1 Jun 31.5 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Jun 31.2 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Jun 29.2 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Jun 28.0 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Jun 29.4 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Jun 29.6 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Jun 29.9 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Jun 30.4 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
9 Jun 29.6 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Jun 27.7 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jun 26.1 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Jun 27.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Jun 26.7 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Jun 26.8 °C 15 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Jun 26.9 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Jun 27.2 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jun 28.0 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jun 27.1 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Jun 26.9 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Jun 26.2 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jun after 26.9 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Jun after 27.8 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Jun after 28.5 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jun after 28.8 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jun after 29.3 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jun after 29.3 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jun after 29.4 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jun after 30.2 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jun after 29.5 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Jun after 30.0 °C 14 % 32 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 · 23 May 2019
After · 27 Jun 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 · 212Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 May 2019 to 20 June 2019 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 June 2019 to 20 June 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,723 hectares (57.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuanhama (3,566 ha, 0.2 %); Cuvelai (2,178 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 1 June 2019 to 20 June 2019. 212 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.

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.