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Mavinga fire, 1 October 2022 Mavinga

Out · last detection 11 Oct 2022, 11:39 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2022 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,683 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 529th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 106 in Angola in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
5,683ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
1 Oct 2022 – 11 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Oct
2022
Heat detections
212
in a single hotspot: 221 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct11 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011

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
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,574 ha in 2016, 1,639 ha in 2017, 3,255 ha in 2019, 33 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,586 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    5,698 ha reached on 1 Oct
    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)
1 Oct 34.6 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Oct 34.0 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
3 Oct 35.1 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Oct 35.9 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Oct 36.5 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Oct 35.3 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Oct 35.6 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Oct 34.4 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
9 Oct 33.7 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
10 Oct 34.4 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Oct 34.2 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Oct after 33.3 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Oct after 34.0 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Oct after 34.7 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Oct after 35.4 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Oct after 33.3 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Oct after 31.4 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Oct after 33.6 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Oct after 32.5 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 46
20 Oct after 33.1 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Oct after 34.1 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2022
After · 18 Oct 2022

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 · 212Every 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 1 October 2022 and 11 October 2022: 11 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 5,683 hectares (56.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (5,698 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.