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Namacunde fire, October 2018 Namacunde

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2018, 11:56 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2018 in Namacunde, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,076 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 100th largest in Cunene since 2016 (of 104 with a page). Number 95 in Angola in 2018, of 100.

Burnt area
5,076ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
10 Oct 2018 – 15 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Oct
2018
Heat detections
141
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
71
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
46km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.0 mm on 22 Oct.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,963 ha in 2016, 226 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,046 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Namacunde where it started
    5,102 ha reached on 10 Oct
    0.5 %

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)
10 Oct 36.8 °C 7 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
11 Oct 36.9 °C 5 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
12 Oct 37.5 °C 7 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Oct 36.6 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
14 Oct 35.6 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
15 Oct 36.5 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
16 Oct after 37.9 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
17 Oct after 38.8 °C 4 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Oct after 37.8 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
19 Oct after 38.6 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
20 Oct after 37.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
21 Oct after 36.9 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm Very extreme 71
22 Oct after 29.3 °C 32 % 56 km/h 7.0 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Oct 2018
After · 22 Oct 2018

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 · 141Every 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 Namacunde fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 October 2018 and 15 October 2018: 6 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 5,076 hectares (50.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Namacunde (5,102 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, 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.

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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.