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Quimbele fire, August 2019 Quimbele

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2019, 12:18 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2019 in Quimbele, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,198 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Uíge since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 31 in Angola in 2019, of 207.

Burnt area
13,198ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
15 Aug 2019 – 29 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Aug
2019
Heat detections
678
in a single hotspot: 150 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
9.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug29 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920212223242627282930

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
33km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 7 Sept.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,382 ha in 2016, 9,735 ha in 2017, 7,194 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,767 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Quimbele where it started
    13,290 ha reached on 13 Aug
    1.9 %

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)
13 Aug 30.2 °C 44 % 30 km/h 1.9 mm Low 9
14 Aug 29.1 °C 45 % 22 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 4
15 Aug 29.7 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Aug 28.5 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
17 Aug 29.5 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Aug 28.5 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Aug 29.5 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
20 Aug 27.4 °C 52 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
21 Aug 29.4 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
22 Aug 30.2 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Aug 29.9 °C 41 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 21
24 Aug 27.0 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Aug 27.0 °C 48 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
26 Aug 27.7 °C 53 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
27 Aug 32.0 °C 39 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
28 Aug 29.9 °C 45 % 32 km/h 2.0 mm Low 10
29 Aug 28.9 °C 54 % 24 km/h 8.7 mm Very low 2
30 Aug after 29.6 °C 52 % 33 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 4
31 Aug after 27.3 °C 62 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
1 Sept after 31.1 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
2 Sept after 32.1 °C 47 % 27 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 15
3 Sept after 30.8 °C 52 % 27 km/h 2.8 mm Very low 5
4 Sept after 30.3 °C 54 % 31 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 5
5 Sept after 30.0 °C 51 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Low 11
6 Sept after 30.6 °C 50 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 14
7 Sept after 30.5 °C 49 % 23 km/h 3.3 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2019
After · 5 Sept 2019

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 · 678Every 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 Quimbele fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 August 2019 and 29 August 2019: 15 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 13,198 hectares (132.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Quimbele (13,290 ha, 1.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class High.
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.