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AO · Angola · →

Mavinga fire, June 2019 Mavinga

Out · last detection 5 Jul 2019, 11:25 UTC

The fire started on 28 June 2019 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,782 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 507th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 155 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
5,782ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
28 Jun 2019 – 4 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Jun
2019
Heat detections
142
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jun4 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

28293012345

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
38km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,249 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    5,838 ha reached on 28 Jun
    0.1 %

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)
28 Jun 27.1 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jun 25.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jun 25.6 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Jul 28.1 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Jul 23.7 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Jul 25.4 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Jul 26.7 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Jul after 26.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Jul after 26.6 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Jul after 26.7 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Jul after 27.4 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Jul after 26.9 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Jul after 26.9 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Jul after 27.5 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Jul after 26.7 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jul after 26.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Jul after 26.0 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jun 2019
After · 11 Jul 2019

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 · 142Every 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 28 June 2019 and 4 July 2019: 7 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 5,782 hectares (57.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (5,838 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.