Cuvelai fire, 4 September 2024 Cuvelai
The fire started on 4 September 2024 in Cuvelai, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,219 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 89th largest in Cunene since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 126 in Angola in 2024, of 135.
- Burnt area
- 5,219ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 4 Sept 2024 – 12 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 213
- in a single hotspot: 138 MW
- Danger at start
- 61
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.7GW
- sum of detected power
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
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 622 ha in 2017, 5,206 ha in 2019, 281 ha in 2020, 3,682 ha in 2021, 1,456 ha in 2022, 468 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,070 ha that had burned before.
- 2,885 ha Cuvelai fire, May 2019 5,188 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 667 ha Cuvelai fire, August 2019 7,607 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 622 ha Cuvelai fire, August 2017 5,037 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cuvelai where it started5,240 ha reached on 30 Aug0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Sept | 30.0 °C | 9 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 5 Sept | 30.9 °C | 7 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 6 Sept | 32.8 °C | 7 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Sept | 33.7 °C | 8 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 8 Sept | 34.4 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 9 Sept | 33.7 °C | 8 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 10 Sept | 34.4 °C | 8 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 11 Sept | 33.9 °C | 8 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 12 Sept | 34.7 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 13 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 14 Sept after | 33.3 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 7 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 17 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 5 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 18 Sept after | 34.6 °C | 4 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 19 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 20 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 21 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 7 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 22 Sept after | 33.8 °C | 7 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 8 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 213Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,340 haCuvelai25 August 2019 · 16 days · 18 km away
- 10,010 haCuvelai14 September 2021 · 7 days · 23 km away
- 8,605 haCuvelai16 September 2019 · 10 days · 29 km away
- 8,461 haCuvelai24 September 2021 · 5 days · 33 km away
- 8,381 haCuvangoAugust 2021 · 11 days · 36 km away
- 17,158 haCuvelai1 July 2019 · 23 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cuvelai fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2024 and 12 September 2024: 9 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 5,219 hectares (52.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cuvelai (5,240 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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
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.