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Bundas fire, 19 August 2023 Bundas, Luena

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2023, 12:30 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2023 in Bundas, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,657 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 76th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 120 in Angola in 2023, of 158.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bundas · 2024Bundas · 2024Bundas · 2017Luena · 2024

Burnt area
5,657ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
19 Aug 2023 – 4 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
19 Aug
2023
Heat detections
309
in a single hotspot: 303 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
326MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug4 Sept
4 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

19 Aug 2023 · 1,363 MW · 42 20 Aug 2023 · 1,607 MW · 33 21 Aug 2023 · 199 MW · 11 22 Aug 2023 · 2 MW · 1 23 Aug 2023 · 10 MW · 2 24 Aug 2023 · 68 MW · 17 25 Aug 2023 · 109 MW · 10 26 Aug 2023 · 104 MW · 8 27 Aug 2023 · 769 MW · 19 28 Aug 2023 · 197 MW · 22 29 Aug 2023 · 115 MW · 21 30 Aug 2023 · 204 MW · 23 31 Aug 2023 · 137 MW · 18 1 Sept 2023 · 415 MW · 14 2 Sept 2023 · 194 MW · 12 3 Sept 2023 · 17 MW · 7 4 Sept 2023 · 40 MW · 5
19 Aug 20 Aug 22 Aug 25 Aug 28 Aug 31 Aug 3 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
52km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,607 ha in 2017, 587 ha in 2019, 4,294 ha in 2021, 1,251 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,233 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.6% of the area of London (57 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. Bundas where it started
    4,142 ha reached on 19 Aug
    0.1 %
  2. Luena
    1,523 ha reached on 19 Aug
    0.0 %

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)
19 Aug 30.7 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Aug 31.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug 32.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Aug 32.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Aug 33.4 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Aug 34.1 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Aug 33.9 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Aug 33.3 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Aug 33.0 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Aug 30.8 °C 23 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Aug 28.6 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug 28.0 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Aug 29.4 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Sept 31.5 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept 32.0 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Sept 33.1 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Sept 33.1 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
5 Sept after 32.1 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Sept after 32.5 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Sept after 32.9 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept after 33.6 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Sept after 33.1 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Sept after 33.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Sept after 33.3 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Sept after 32.7 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Sept after 33.0 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Sept after 32.3 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Aug 2023
After · 11 Sept 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 25 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 80 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak80 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM10114 µg/m³
Optical depth1.18
1718192021222324252627282930311234567
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 · 309Every 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 Bundas fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 August 2023 and 4 September 2023: 17 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 5,657 hectares (56.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bundas (4,142 ha, 0.1 %); Luena (1,523 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 309 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.