How long did the Matala fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2022 and 28 September 2022: 2 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 5,053 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Matala (5,081 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.

AO · Angola · 2022-09-27 → 2022-09-28

Matala fire, September 2022 Matala

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2022, 23:32 UTC

The fire started on 27 September 2022 in Matala, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,053 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 70th largest in Huíla since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 142 in Angola in 2022, of 143.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Matala · 2017 Matala · 2019 Matala · 2026 Matala · 2024

Burnt area: 5,053ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 2days; 27 Sept 2022 – 28 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 27 Sept; 2022
Heat detections: 120; in a single hotspot: 191 MW
Danger at start: 53; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 2.6GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Sept28 Sept

Play back 28 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

27 Sept 28 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

34km/h · peak gust

9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 141 ha in 2016, 3,476 ha in 2017, 1,527 ha in 2019, 101 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,113 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Matala where it started

5,081 ha reached on 27 Sept

0.6 %

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)
27 Sept	35.0 °C	13 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
28 Sept	36.8 °C	9 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
29 Sept after	34.2 °C	16 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
30 Sept after	33.4 °C	22 %	25 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
1 Oct after	35.5 °C	15 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
2 Oct after	35.7 °C	13 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
3 Oct after	37.8 °C	10 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
4 Oct after	36.9 °C	9 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
5 Oct after	36.3 °C	14 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
6 Oct after	35.1 °C	14 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
7 Oct after	36.4 °C	11 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
8 Oct after	33.5 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Sept 2022

After · 5 Oct 2022

Before After

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 · 120Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Matala fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 September 2022 and 28 September 2022: 2 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 5,053 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Matala (5,081 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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. 120 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned