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Mavinga fire, 13 September 2019 Mavinga

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2019, 12:09 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2019 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,484 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 78th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 22 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
15,484ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
13 Sept 2019 – 26 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Sept
2019
Heat detections
764
in a single hotspot: 202 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
12.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept26 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617181920212223242526

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
50km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,678 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    15,499 ha reached on 13 Sept
    0.4 %

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)
13 Sept 35.5 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Sept 35.5 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Sept 35.6 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Sept 34.5 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Sept 33.6 °C 9 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
18 Sept 33.5 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Sept 34.2 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Sept 33.7 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
21 Sept 35.0 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Sept 36.2 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Sept 35.2 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Sept 35.4 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
25 Sept 33.9 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
26 Sept 28.4 °C 30 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Sept after 29.8 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Sept after 31.7 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Sept after 34.7 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Sept after 35.5 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Oct after 33.1 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Oct after 34.3 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Oct after 34.2 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Oct after 34.2 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Oct after 33.3 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 46
6 Oct after 34.7 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Sept 2019
After · 3 Oct 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 · 764Every 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 13 September 2019 and 26 September 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 15,484 hectares (154.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (15,499 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.