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Mavinga fire, 8 August 2019 Mavinga

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2019, 11:44 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2019 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,478 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 425th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 120 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
6,478ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
8 Aug 2019 – 21 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Aug
2019
Heat detections
220
in a single hotspot: 217 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug21 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

891011121315161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
56km/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

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,142 ha in 2016, 308 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    6,494 ha reached on 8 Aug
    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)
8 Aug 32.5 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 32.5 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Aug 30.3 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Aug 29.4 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug 30.0 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug 30.2 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Aug 30.9 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Aug 29.5 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Aug 26.9 °C 17 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
17 Aug 26.9 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Aug 28.2 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Aug 27.7 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Aug 27.2 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Aug 27.4 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
22 Aug after 26.2 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Aug after 26.2 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Aug after 26.8 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Aug after 28.1 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Aug after 30.2 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Aug after 32.1 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Aug after 32.8 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Aug after 33.8 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Aug after 33.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug after 33.5 °C 12 % 27 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 · 1 Aug 2019
After · 28 Aug 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 · 220Every 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 8 August 2019 and 21 August 2019: 14 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 6,478 hectares (64.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (6,494 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 56 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.

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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.