How long did the Andulo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2026 and 19 August 2026: 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 7,571 hectares (75.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Andulo (7,616 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 49 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.

AO · Angola · 2026-08-05 → 2026-08-19

Andulo fire, 5 August 2026 Andulo

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2026, 13:12 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2026 in Andulo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,571 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 233 in Angola in 2026, of 485.

Burnt area: 7,571ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 5 Aug 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 5 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 262; in a single hotspot: 94 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

578910111213141516171920

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

The weather it burned in

29°high

49km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,445 ha in 2017, 3,217 ha in 2019, 1,687 ha in 2021, 3,295 ha in 2022, 1,267 ha in 2023, 3,296 ha in 2024, 1,718 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,711 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Andulo where it started

7,616 ha reached on 5 Aug

0.8 %

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)
5 Aug	27.2 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Aug	27.1 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Aug	28.1 °C	19 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Aug	28.1 °C	20 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Aug	28.3 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Aug	28.6 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Aug	28.2 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
12 Aug	28.2 °C	16 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
13 Aug	28.4 °C	21 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
14 Aug	28.2 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Aug	28.5 °C	27 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
16 Aug	27.9 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
17 Aug	27.8 °C	18 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
18 Aug	28.5 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Aug	28.9 °C	14 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
20 Aug after	28.5 °C	13 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
21 Aug after	27.8 °C	20 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Aug after	28.4 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Aug after	29.2 °C	22 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
24 Aug after	29.4 °C	23 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
25 Aug after	29.1 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
26 Aug after	28.6 °C	27 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
27 Aug after	30.5 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 Aug after	29.1 °C	23 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
29 Aug after	28.9 °C	23 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
30 Aug after	28.1 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Aug after	27.7 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
1 Sept after	29.4 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
2 Sept after	29.3 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Sept after	27.7 °C	34 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
4 Sept after	26.6 °C	40 %	32 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Jul 2026

After · 26 Aug 2026

Before After

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 12 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 140 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 96: 6.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak140 µg/m³

Days over the guideline27 days

PM10142 µg/m³

Optical depth1.58

WHO 15

34567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829

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 · 262Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Andulo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2026 and 19 August 2026: 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 7,571 hectares (75.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Andulo (7,616 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 49 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned