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AO · Angola · →

Bundas fire, 3 September 2025 Bundas

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2025, 00:48 UTC

The fire started on 3 September 2025 in Bundas, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,546 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 49th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 107 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area
6,546ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
3 Sept 2025 – 16 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Sept
2025
Heat detections
139
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

345678910121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
47km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 817 ha in 2018, 622 ha in 2019, 902 ha in 2020, 121 ha in 2021, 942 ha in 2022, 1,554 ha in 2023, 2,181 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,206 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bundas where it started
    6,554 ha reached on 3 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
3 Sept 29.8 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Sept 31.1 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Sept 32.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Sept 33.4 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Sept 33.7 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Sept 34.1 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Sept 34.2 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Sept 33.8 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Sept 34.1 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Sept 31.6 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Sept 31.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Sept 33.6 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept 34.1 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Sept 35.7 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Sept after 35.2 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Sept after 36.0 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Sept after 35.2 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Sept after 33.2 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 54
21 Sept after 33.5 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Sept after 35.1 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
23 Sept after 34.3 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Sept after 36.5 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Sept after 35.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Sept after 34.0 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Aug 2025
After · 23 Sept 2025

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 7 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 87 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 64: 4.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak87 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM1090 µg/m³
Optical depth1.06
12345678910111213141516171819
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 · 139Every 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 3 September 2025 and 16 September 2025: 14 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 6,546 hectares (65.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bundas (6,554 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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

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.