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Mavinga fire, 5 September 2023 Mavinga

Out · last detection 12 Sept 2023, 00:47 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2023 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,817 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 387th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 74 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
6,817ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
5 Sept 2023 – 11 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2023
Heat detections
332
in a single hotspot: 186 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Sept 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

56789101112

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
45km/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

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 519 ha in 2016, 564 ha in 2018, 550 ha in 2020, 3,143 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,938 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    6,847 ha reached on 4 Sept
    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)
5 Sept 32.7 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Sept 33.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Sept 33.8 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Sept 33.9 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
9 Sept 33.9 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
10 Sept 33.5 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Sept 34.3 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Sept after 28.5 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Sept after 32.2 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Sept after 32.8 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Sept after 33.6 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Sept after 34.2 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Sept after 34.5 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Sept after 35.8 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Sept after 33.7 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Sept after 34.3 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Sept after 35.1 °C 13 % 37 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 · 29 Aug 2023
After · 18 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 · 332Every 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 September 2023 and 11 September 2023: 7 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 6,817 hectares (68.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (6,847 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 45 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.