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Mavinga fire, 18 August 2020 Mavinga

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2020, 13:11 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2020 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,071 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 468th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 73 in Angola in 2020, of 123.

Burnt area
6,071ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
18 Aug 2020 – 29 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Aug
2020
Heat detections
214
in a single hotspot: 162 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug29 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
41km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 690 ha in 2016, 2,351 ha in 2017, 2,385 ha in 2018, 19 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,921 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    6,128 ha reached on 17 Aug
    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)
18 Aug 29.7 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Aug 24.7 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Aug 25.5 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Aug 27.5 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Aug 29.5 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug 28.7 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Aug 29.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 30.7 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Aug 32.6 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Aug 33.2 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Aug 31.9 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Aug 32.5 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Aug after 27.8 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Aug after 27.6 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept after 30.7 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Sept after 31.5 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Sept after 31.7 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept after 32.1 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Sept after 31.0 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Sept after 30.1 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Sept after 30.0 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Sept after 30.0 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2020
After · 5 Sept 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 · 214Every 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 18 August 2020 and 29 August 2020: 12 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 6,071 hectares (60.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (6,128 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % 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.