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Mavinga fire, 15 August 2023 Mavinga

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2023, 13:00 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2023 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,940 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 293th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 50 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
7,940ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
15 Aug 2023 – 28 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Aug
2023
Heat detections
428
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
6.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819202122232425262728

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
54km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 351 ha in 2017, 427 ha in 2018, 5,041 ha in 2019, 40 ha in 2021, 688 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,674 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    7,946 ha reached on 15 Aug
    0.2 %

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)
15 Aug 31.0 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Aug 31.1 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Aug 32.1 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Aug 32.3 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug 32.0 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug 32.9 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Aug 34.6 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Aug 35.0 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Aug 35.3 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Aug 35.2 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Aug 35.2 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Aug 35.5 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Aug 34.3 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
28 Aug 30.4 °C 23 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
29 Aug after 28.6 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug after 28.1 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug after 29.8 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Sept after 32.5 °C 5 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Sept after 33.4 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Sept after 34.1 °C 7 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Sept after 33.6 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Sept after 33.7 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Sept after 34.4 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Sept after 35.0 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2023
After · 4 Sept 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 · 428Every 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 15 August 2023 and 28 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 7,940 hectares (79.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (7,946 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 54 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.