Cuvelai fire, 13 August 2021 Cuvelai, Cuanhama
The fire started on 13 August 2021 in Cuvelai, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,326 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 12th largest in Cunene since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 17 in Angola in 2021, of 126.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 14,326ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 13 Aug 2021 – 26 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 492
- in a single hotspot: 78 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 389MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,345 ha in 2016, 3,927 ha in 2017, 2,841 ha in 2018, 3,525 ha in 2019, 427 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,054 ha that had burned before.
- 1,094 ha Cuvelai fire, September 2019 13,593 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 187 ha Cuanhama fire, September 2016 11,086 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 145 ha Cuanhama fire, September 2020 15,781 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 99 ha Cuvelai fire, September 2020 6,018 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Cuvelai where it started12,821 ha reached on 13 Aug0.8 %
-
1,594 ha reached on 21 Aug0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Aug | 32.0 °C | 7 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 14 Aug | 32.6 °C | 8 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 15 Aug | 31.9 °C | 12 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Aug | 31.2 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 17 Aug | 30.9 °C | 9 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 18 Aug | 32.0 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Aug | 32.4 °C | 8 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 20 Aug | 30.8 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 Aug | 31.4 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 22 Aug | 33.3 °C | 8 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Aug | 30.8 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Aug | 31.4 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 25 Aug | 33.6 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 26 Aug | 34.7 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 27 Aug after | 33.2 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 29 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 12 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 30 Aug after | 33.1 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 31 Aug after | 33.9 °C | 6 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 1 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 2 Sept after | 34.3 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 3 Sept after | 33.8 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 4 Sept after | 33.5 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 5 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 11 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 492Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,229 haCuanhama1 September 2025 · 14 days · 6 km away
- 13,593 haCuvelai1 September 2019 · 24 days · 14 km away
- 11,281 haCuanhama16 August 2024 · 8 days · 14 km away
- 11,086 haCuanhama28 September 2016 · 7 days · 15 km away
- 15,781 haCuanhama19 September 2020 · 19 days · 16 km away
- 17,500 haCuanhama9 September 2020 · 11 days · 19 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cuvelai fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 August 2021 and 26 August 2021: 14 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 14,326 hectares (143.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuvelai (12,821 ha, 0.8 %); Cuanhama (1,594 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 492 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.
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.