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Cuvelai fire, 3 June 2019 Cuvelai

Out · last detection 9 Jun 2019, 12:53 UTC

The fire started on 3 June 2019 in Cuvelai, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,835 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 68th largest in Cunene since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 152 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
5,835ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
3 Jun 2019 – 9 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Jun
2019
Heat detections
152
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jun 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jun9 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

3456789

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
52km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 412 ha in 2016, 2,595 ha in 2017, 905 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,328 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuvelai where it started
    5,862 ha reached on 3 Jun
    0.4 %

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)
3 Jun 28.6 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Jun 27.5 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Jun 29.0 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Jun 29.1 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Jun 29.2 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Jun 29.8 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Jun 29.1 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Jun after 27.2 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Jun after 25.5 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Jun after 26.6 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jun after 26.1 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Jun after 26.4 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Jun after 26.5 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jun after 26.8 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Jun after 27.6 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Jun after 26.7 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jun after 26.5 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 May 2019
After · 16 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 · 152Every 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 3 June 2019 and 9 June 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 5,835 hectares (58.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuvelai (5,862 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 52 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.