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AO · Angola · →

Mavinga fire, October 2023 Mavinga

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2023, 23:18 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2023 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,132 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 462th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 100 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Burnt area
6,132ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
1 Oct 2023 – 7 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Oct
2023
Heat detections
225
in a single hotspot: 327 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
11.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct7 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

134567

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
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 13 Oct.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,459 ha in 2017, 4,163 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,200 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    6,141 ha reached on 1 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)
1 Oct 35.5 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Oct 34.8 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
3 Oct 34.5 °C 15 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
4 Oct 33.5 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Oct 35.0 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
6 Oct 35.4 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Oct 35.9 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Oct after 36.8 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Oct after 36.3 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Oct after 36.1 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 43
11 Oct after 33.2 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
12 Oct after 34.4 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
13 Oct after 35.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 1.1 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2023
After · 14 Oct 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 · 225Every 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 1 October 2023 and 7 October 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 6,132 hectares (61.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (6,141 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.