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Massango fire, 26 August 2023 Massango

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2023, 00:20 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2023 in Massango, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,217 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Malanje since 2016 (of 127 with a page). Number 97 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
6,217ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
26 Aug 2023 – 7 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Aug
2023
Heat detections
203
in a single hotspot: 80 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

27282930311234578

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high
34km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 16 Sept.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,932 ha in 2016, 4,671 ha in 2017, 4,045 ha in 2018, 3,325 ha in 2019, 3,523 ha in 2020, 3,784 ha in 2021, 2,602 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,159 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Massango where it started
    6,258 ha reached on 23 Aug
    0.8 %

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)
26 Aug 33.3 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.7 mm High 27
27 Aug 35.7 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Aug 32.5 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
29 Aug 32.9 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
30 Aug 34.6 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Aug 32.5 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Sept 35.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept 33.8 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Sept 32.5 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept 33.0 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept 30.8 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Sept 31.5 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Sept 32.7 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Sept after 34.8 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
9 Sept after 34.2 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Sept after 34.0 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept after 33.0 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Sept after 32.8 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Sept after 28.1 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
14 Sept after 32.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
15 Sept after 36.4 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.8 mm High 33
16 Sept after 33.7 °C 38 % 28 km/h 1.1 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2023
After · 14 Sept 2023

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 · 203Every 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 Massango fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2023 and 7 September 2023: 13 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 6,217 hectares (62.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Massango (6,258 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
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.