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Cuvelai fire, 1 July 2019 Cuvelai

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2019, 12:09 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2019 in Cuvelai, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,158 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Cunene since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 17 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
17,158ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
1 Jul 2019 – 23 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Jul
2019
Heat detections
745
in a single hotspot: 177 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul23 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011121314151617182021222324

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
46km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 416 ha in 2016, 199 ha in 2017, 1,442 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,903 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuvelai where it started
    17,252 ha reached on 1 Jul
    1.1 %

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)
1 Jul 29.2 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Jul 26.9 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Jul 27.0 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Jul 28.4 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Jul 28.1 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Jul 28.1 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Jul 28.1 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Jul 29.3 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Jul 28.5 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Jul 27.8 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Jul 28.9 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Jul 28.7 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Jul 29.0 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Jul 29.1 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Jul 27.8 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Jul 27.6 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Jul 28.0 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Jul 27.6 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Jul 28.1 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Jul 28.0 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Jul 29.1 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Jul 29.7 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Jul 30.1 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Jul after 30.2 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Jul after 29.8 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Jul after 29.2 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
27 Jul after 29.1 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Jul after 29.3 °C 7 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Jul after 30.7 °C 5 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 Jul after 30.0 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
31 Jul after 31.1 °C 4 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Aug after 30.7 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Aug after 31.2 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Aug after 33.1 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Aug after 29.7 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Aug after 31.3 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Aug after 30.6 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug after 32.8 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug after 31.2 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug after 33.3 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jun 2019
After · 30 Jul 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 · 745Every 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 1 July 2019 and 23 July 2019: 23 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 17,158 hectares (171.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuvelai (17,252 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 46 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

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.