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Mavinga fire, 12 August 2020 Mavinga

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2020, 12:21 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2020 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,417 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 264th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 31 in Angola in 2020, of 123.

Burnt area
8,417ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
12 Aug 2020 – 20 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Aug
2020
Heat detections
264
in a single hotspot: 430 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718192021

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
41km/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

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,722 ha in 2016, 2,218 ha in 2017, 2,038 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,231 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    8,498 ha reached on 12 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)
12 Aug 30.9 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug 31.0 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Aug 29.6 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Aug 29.6 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Aug 31.4 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Aug 31.6 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Aug 29.4 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Aug 24.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Aug 25.5 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Aug after 27.5 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Aug after 29.6 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Aug after 28.9 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Aug after 30.1 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Aug after 31.1 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Aug after 32.4 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Aug after 33.2 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Aug after 32.0 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug after 32.9 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Aug after 27.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2020
After · 27 Aug 2020

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 · 264Every 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 12 August 2020 and 20 August 2020: 9 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 8,417 hectares (84.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (8,498 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.