Rivungo fire, 6 September 2022 Rivungo
The fire started on 6 September 2022 in Rivungo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 94,385 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the largest fire in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 660 with a page). The largest in Angola in 2022, of 143.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 94,385ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 6 Sept 2022 – 20 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 6 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 3,282
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.8GW
- detected power per day, on average
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
85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 24,502 ha in 2016, 29,317 ha in 2017, 16,036 ha in 2018, 34,160 ha in 2019, 13,754 ha in 2020, 37,254 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 80,447 ha that had burned before.
- 19,115 ha Rivungo fire, August 2019 43,553 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,949 ha Rivungo fire, September 2021 25,287 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,116 ha Rivungo fire, September 2017 36,042 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,974 ha Rivungo fire, August 2021 24,790 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,910 ha Rivungo fire, September 2021 22,025 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,376 ha Rivungo fire, September 2016 5,466 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 973 ha Rivungo fire, September 2018 8,029 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 613 ha Rivungo fire, September 2020 7,624 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Rivungo where it started95,260 ha3.3 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Sept | 35.6 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 7 Sept | 34.2 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 8 Sept | 33.1 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 9 Sept | 32.8 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 10 Sept | 33.1 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 11 Sept | 34.0 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Sept | 34.7 °C | 10 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Sept | 34.4 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 14 Sept | 33.2 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 15 Sept | 31.1 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Sept | 31.2 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 17 Sept | 32.4 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Sept | 34.3 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Sept | 34.6 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Sept | 29.8 °C | 13 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 21 Sept after | 31.6 °C | 11 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 22 Sept after | 33.3 °C | 4 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 23 Sept after | 35.7 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 24 Sept after | 36.1 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 25 Sept after | 35.7 °C | 13 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 26 Sept after | 35.6 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 27 Sept after | 36.3 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 28 Sept after | 36.6 °C | 14 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 29 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 13 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 30 Sept after | 34.6 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
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 12 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 126 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 4.9 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 · 0Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 43,553 haRivungo26 August 2019 · 31 days · 8 km away
- 25,287 haRivungo7 September 2021 · 24 days · 8 km away
- 43,404 haRivungo26 August 2025 · 19 days · 16 km away
- 36,042 haRivungo7 September 2017 · 23 days · 17 km away
- 72,246 haRivungo2 August 2024 · 17 days · 24 km away
- 92,552 haRivungo22 August 2025 · 29 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rivungo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 September 2022 and 20 September 2022: 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 94,385 hectares (943.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rivungo (95,260 ha, 3.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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 · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 22 September 2022 → 20 September 2022.
- Start date: 30 August 2022 → 6 September 2022.
- Last day with fire: 20 September 2022 → 22 September 2022.
- Start date: 6 September 2022 → 30 August 2022.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.