How long did the Mavinga fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2025 and 16 August 2025: 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 6,294 hectares (62.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mavinga (6,354 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.

AO · Angola · 2025-08-10 → 2025-08-16

Mavinga fire, 10 August 2025 Mavinga

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2025, 11:39 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2025 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,294 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 442th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 114 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area: 6,294ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 10 Aug 2025 – 16 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 10 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 197; in a single hotspot: 149 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 4.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Aug 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

37km/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

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,318 ha in 2017, 372 ha in 2018, 1,124 ha in 2019, 2,509 ha in 2020, 1,314 ha in 2021, 1,411 ha in 2022, 1,954 ha in 2023, 995 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,375 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mavinga where it started

6,354 ha reached on 9 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	Danger (FWI)
10 Aug	29.1 °C	8 %	28 km/h	Very high 48
11 Aug	29.4 °C	10 %	37 km/h	Extreme 53
12 Aug	29.8 °C	12 %	36 km/h	Extreme 54
13 Aug	30.0 °C	12 %	34 km/h	Extreme 51
14 Aug	29.9 °C	12 %	33 km/h	Extreme 52
15 Aug	31.4 °C	12 %	34 km/h	Extreme 53
16 Aug	31.1 °C	10 %	26 km/h	Very high 48
17 Aug after	31.1 °C	9 %	27 km/h	Very high 49
18 Aug after	31.5 °C	13 %	37 km/h	Extreme 54
19 Aug after	31.2 °C	14 %	37 km/h	Extreme 56
20 Aug after	31.1 °C	13 %	38 km/h	Extreme 56
21 Aug after	31.3 °C	10 %	37 km/h	Extreme 53
22 Aug after	32.0 °C	10 %	35 km/h	Extreme 54
23 Aug after	32.9 °C	8 %	35 km/h	Extreme 53
24 Aug after	33.3 °C	6 %	40 km/h	Extreme 60
25 Aug after	32.3 °C	10 %	41 km/h	Extreme 61
26 Aug after	33.5 °C	17 %	48 km/h	Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Aug 2025

After · 23 Aug 2025

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 18 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 70 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak70 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1072 µg/m³

Optical depth0.50

WHO 15

8910111213141516171819

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 197Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mavinga fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 August 2025 and 16 August 2025: 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 6,294 hectares (62.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mavinga (6,354 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned