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Mavinga fire, 22 July 2023 Mavinga

Out · last detection 2 Aug 2023, 12:48 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2023 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,657 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 85th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 11 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
14,657ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
22 Jul 2023 – 2 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Jul
2023
Heat detections
457
in a single hotspot: 427 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
8.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul2 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

222324252829303112

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
43km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,256 ha in 2016, 384 ha in 2017, 4,976 ha in 2018, 2,304 ha in 2019, 6,631 ha in 2021, 760 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,262 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    14,771 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.3 %

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)
19 Jul 25.1 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jul 26.4 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul 25.3 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
22 Jul 26.6 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jul 26.7 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jul 26.5 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jul 26.6 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jul 27.3 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jul 27.5 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Jul 28.2 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jul 29.4 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul 23.9 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Jul 22.2 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Aug 22.8 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Aug 26.6 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Aug after 25.6 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Aug after 24.5 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug after 24.4 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug after 24.9 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug after 25.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Aug after 26.4 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug after 26.6 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Aug after 27.4 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Aug after 27.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Aug after 28.4 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jul 2023
After · 9 Aug 2023

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 · 457Every 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 22 July 2023 and 2 August 2023: 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 14,657 hectares (146.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (14,771 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
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.