How long did the Bundas fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 September 2026 to 5 October 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 September 2026 to 1 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,699 hectares (67.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bundas (6,696 ha, 0.2 %).

Is the Bundas fire still active?

No fire detections since 5 Oct 2026, 12:10 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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.

AO · Angola · 2026-09-17 → 2026-10-05

Bundas fire, September 2026 Bundas

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2026, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2026 in Bundas, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,699 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 45th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 290 in Angola in 2026, of 485.

Burnt area: 6,699ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 17 Sept 2026 – 5 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 17 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 137; in a single hotspot: 139 MW
Danger at start: 33; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 5 Oct 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept5 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1718212324252627281345

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

46km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 8 Oct.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,226 ha in 2017, 276 ha in 2018, 3,196 ha in 2019, 1,391 ha in 2021, 33 ha in 2022, 3,992 ha in 2023, 2,850 ha in 2024, 3,807 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,163 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Bundas where it started

6,696 ha reached on 17 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)
17 Sept	32.3 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
18 Sept	31.4 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Sept	31.2 °C	30 %	38 km/h	2.2 mm	Moderate 16
20 Sept	28.4 °C	52 %	28 km/h	1.4 mm	Low 10
21 Sept	29.4 °C	40 %	28 km/h	1.9 mm	Low 8
22 Sept	25.1 °C	54 %	20 km/h	1.6 mm	Low 5
23 Sept	31.9 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
24 Sept	32.6 °C	21 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Sept	33.4 °C	15 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
26 Sept	34.0 °C	17 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 Sept	33.9 °C	19 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
28 Sept	31.8 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
29 Sept	33.6 °C	28 %	34 km/h	2.4 mm	Moderate 20
30 Sept	30.9 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
1 Oct	31.5 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
2 Oct	30.4 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
3 Oct	30.9 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
4 Oct	32.8 °C	16 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Oct	31.6 °C	27 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
6 Oct after	33.0 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
7 Oct after	31.2 °C	36 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
8 Oct after	33.0 °C	31 %	29 km/h	2.5 mm	Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Sept 2026

After · 12 Oct 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 18 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 64 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak64 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM1065 µg/m³

Optical depth1.01

WHO 15

1516171819202122232425262728293012345678

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 · 137Every 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 Bundas fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 September 2026 to 5 October 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 September 2026 to 1 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,699 hectares (67.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bundas (6,696 ha, 0.2 %).
Is the Bundas fire still active?: No fire detections since 5 Oct 2026, 12:10 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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

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