Skip to content
worldfires
AO · Angola · →

Mavinga fire, 4 October 2018 Mavinga

Out · last detection 13 Oct 2018, 12:34 UTC

The fire started on 4 October 2018 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,343 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 266th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 26 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Burnt area
8,343ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
4 Oct 2018 – 13 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Oct
2018
Heat detections
283
in a single hotspot: 645 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
9.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct13 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213

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
52km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 23 Oct.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,016 ha in 2016, 990 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    8,412 ha reached on 2 Oct
    0.2 %

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 Oct 34.6 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Oct 35.1 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
6 Oct 34.8 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
7 Oct 34.0 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
8 Oct 33.1 °C 10 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
9 Oct 33.0 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
10 Oct 33.8 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Oct 34.2 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Oct 35.2 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Oct 35.6 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Oct after 35.4 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Oct after 35.4 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Oct after 35.3 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Oct after 36.3 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Oct after 36.5 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Oct after 36.5 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
20 Oct after 35.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Oct after 34.3 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 55
22 Oct after 30.8 °C 22 % 55 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 54
23 Oct after 27.1 °C 34 % 43 km/h 1.4 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Sept 2018
After · 20 Oct 2018

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 · 283Every 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 Mavinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2018 and 13 October 2018: 10 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 8,343 hectares (83.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (8,412 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, 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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.