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Mavinga fire, 5 October 2022 Mavinga

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2022, 11:44 UTC

The fire started on 5 October 2022 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,580 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 545th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 114 in Angola in 2022, of 143.

Burnt area
5,580ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
5 Oct 2022 – 16 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Oct
2022
Heat detections
206
in a single hotspot: 84 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516

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. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 23 Oct.

This area had burned before

54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 363 ha in 2017, 1,753 ha in 2018, 611 ha in 2019, 77 ha in 2020, 295 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    5,622 ha reached on 2 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)
5 Oct 36.4 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
6 Oct 36.2 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Oct 35.8 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 Oct 34.5 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Oct 33.6 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
10 Oct 34.2 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
11 Oct 33.9 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
12 Oct 33.6 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Oct 33.6 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Oct 35.0 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Oct 35.6 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Oct 34.1 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Oct after 32.0 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Oct after 33.7 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 50
19 Oct after 31.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Oct after 32.8 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Oct after 33.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Oct after 34.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Oct after 33.7 °C 24 % 28 km/h 1.7 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Sept 2022
After · 23 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 · 206Every 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 5 October 2022 and 16 October 2022: 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 5,580 hectares (55.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (5,622 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.