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Nancova fire, June 2023 Nancova

Out · last detection 29 Jun 2023, 11:45 UTC

The fire started on 21 June 2023 in Nancova, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,017 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 652th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 157 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nancova · 2021Nancova · 2021Nancova · 2019Cuangar · 2017

Burnt area
5,017ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
21 Jun 2023 – 29 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 Jun
2023
Heat detections
156
in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
292MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jun29 Jun
29 Jun 2023

How it evolved, day by day

21 Jun 2023 · 269 MW · 33 22 Jun 2023 · 1,462 MW · 56 23 Jun 2023 · 514 MW · 46 24 Jun 2023 · 10 MW · 3 25 Jun 2023 · 7 MW · 2 26 Jun 2023 · 29 MW · 5 27 Jun 2023 · 41 MW · 9 29 Jun 2023 · 7 MW · 2
21 Jun 22 Jun 23 Jun 25 Jun 27 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
41km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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: 965 ha in 2016, 845 ha in 2018, 113 ha in 2019, 4,129 ha in 2021, 327 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,448 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (50 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Nancova where it started
    5,044 ha reached on 21 Jun
    0.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
21 Jun 27.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Jun 27.7 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Jun 27.3 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Jun 25.6 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jun 25.3 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Jun 27.2 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jun 25.6 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jun 24.2 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jun 25.5 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jun after 26.4 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Jul after 26.9 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Jul after 26.3 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Jul after 26.3 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Jul after 24.9 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Jul after 25.2 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Jul after 25.0 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jul after 25.5 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jun 2023
After · 6 Jul 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 19 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM1080 µg/m³
Optical depth0.46
192021222324252627282930
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 · 156Every 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 Nancova fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 June 2023 to 29 June 2023 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 June 2023 to 27 June 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,017 hectares (50.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nancova (5,044 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 27 June 2023 → 29 June 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 June 2023 to 27 June 2023. 156 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.