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Cacolo fire, 23 July 2026 Cacolo

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2026, 12:04 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2026 in Cacolo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,947 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 98 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
13,947ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
23 Jul 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2026
Heat detections
427
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272829303115678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
47km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,343 ha in 2016, 1,018 ha in 2017, 8,015 ha in 2018, 371 ha in 2019, 7,541 ha in 2020, 3,269 ha in 2021, 1,477 ha in 2022, 521 ha in 2023, 3,014 ha in 2024, 360 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,292 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cacolo where it started
    14,010 ha reached on 18 Jul
    1.1 %

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)
18 Jul 26.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Jul 28.0 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Jul 28.0 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jul 29.1 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jul 30.5 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jul 29.5 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Jul 29.2 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Jul 28.1 °C 30 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jul 28.1 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Jul 28.1 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jul 27.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Jul 28.4 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul 28.5 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jul 28.3 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Aug 28.7 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Aug 29.6 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug 28.6 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug 29.0 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug 29.5 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug 29.7 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug 29.3 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug 29.0 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 29.2 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Aug 30.5 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Aug 29.0 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 29.8 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug 29.1 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug after 28.5 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 39
15 Aug after 29.4 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Aug after 28.7 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug after 29.2 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Aug after 29.7 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug after 29.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Aug after 29.4 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug after 30.0 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Aug after 30.7 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Aug after 31.6 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Aug after 31.4 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Aug after 30.8 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug after 30.5 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Aug after 32.7 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Aug after 31.8 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug after 30.3 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Aug after 30.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2026
After · 20 Aug 2026

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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 166 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 86: 5.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak166 µg/m³
Days over the guideline38 days
PM10173 µg/m³
Optical depth1.64
161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 427Every 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 Cacolo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2026 and 13 August 2026: 22 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 13,947 hectares (139.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cacolo (14,010 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

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.