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Mavinga fire, 10 August 2023 Mavinga

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2023, 11:32 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2023 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,447 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 566th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 132 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
5,447ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
10 Aug 2023 – 23 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Aug
2023
Heat detections
232
in a single hotspot: 196 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516171819202122

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
46km/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

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11 ha in 2016, 1,505 ha in 2017, 1,911 ha in 2019, 839 ha in 2020, 1,035 ha in 2021, 536 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,896 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    5,498 ha reached on 10 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)
10 Aug 28.1 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug 28.1 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Aug 28.9 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug 29.2 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Aug 30.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug 31.2 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Aug 30.9 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Aug 31.7 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Aug 32.5 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug 32.0 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug 32.9 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Aug 33.6 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Aug 34.9 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Aug 35.2 °C 12 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Aug after 34.5 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Aug after 34.4 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Aug after 33.8 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Aug after 32.4 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
28 Aug after 28.7 °C 32 % 53 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 51
29 Aug after 27.4 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug after 27.6 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug after 28.8 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept after 31.8 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Sept after 32.6 °C 11 % 31 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 · 3 Aug 2023
After · 30 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 · 232Every 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 10 August 2023 and 23 August 2023: 14 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 5,447 hectares (54.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (5,498 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.