Mavinga fire, 30 August 2025 Mavinga
The fire started on 30 August 2025 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 34,521 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 16th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 10 in Angola in 2025, of 191.
- Burnt area
- 34,521ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 30 Aug 2025 – 21 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 30 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,014
- in a single hotspot: 192 MW
- Danger at start
- 60
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 11.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,017 ha in 2016, 20 ha in 2017, 13,769 ha in 2018, 2,592 ha in 2019, 1,374 ha in 2020, 18,149 ha in 2021, 2,944 ha in 2022, 14,067 ha in 2023, 1,485 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 30,809 ha that had burned before.
- 7,396 ha Mavinga fire, August 2018 13,275 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,243 ha Mavinga fire, August 2021 11,168 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,234 ha Mavinga fire, September 2023 6,817 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,105 ha Mavinga fire, August 2018 8,750 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,588 ha Mavinga fire, September 2019 10,449 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,308 ha Mavinga fire, September 2016 7,795 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,199 ha Mavinga fire, August 2021 8,292 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 831 ha Mavinga fire, August 2018 6,409 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mavinga where it started34,684 ha reached on 31 Aug0.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Aug | 33.5 °C | 9 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 31 Aug | 32.9 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 1 Sept | 33.0 °C | 9 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 2 Sept | 33.1 °C | 7 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 3 Sept | 31.2 °C | 9 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 4 Sept | 31.9 °C | 7 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 5 Sept | 32.6 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 6 Sept | 33.7 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 7 Sept | 34.1 °C | 10 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 8 Sept | 34.4 °C | 10 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 9 Sept | 34.5 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 10 Sept | 35.1 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 11 Sept | 34.4 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 12 Sept | 34.5 °C | 10 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 13 Sept | 34.6 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 14 Sept | 35.4 °C | 10 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 15 Sept | 35.3 °C | 8 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Sept | 36.7 °C | 6 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Sept | 36.6 °C | 6 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 18 Sept | 36.9 °C | 8 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 19 Sept | 36.5 °C | 10 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 20 Sept | 35.7 °C | 11 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 21 Sept | 34.5 °C | 19 % | 49 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 22 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 23 Sept after | 33.8 °C | 12 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 24 Sept after | 35.5 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 25 Sept after | 37.2 °C | 11 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 26 Sept after | 35.6 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 27 Sept after | 35.4 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Sept after | 33.7 °C | 7 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 29 Sept after | 34.4 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 30 Sept after | 35.3 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 1 Oct after | 35.5 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 7 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,014Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mavinga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2025 and 21 September 2025: 23 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 34,521 hectares (345.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mavinga (34,684 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, class Very 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.
Report an error
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.