Cacolo fire, 29 July 2026 Cacolo
The fire started on 29 July 2026 in Cacolo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 44 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 109,963 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
It is the largest fire in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 6 in Angola in 2026, of 485.
- Burnt area
- 109,963ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 44days
- 29 Jul 2026 – 10 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 29 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 5,245
- in a single hotspot: 237 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 54.3GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.9 mm on 5 Sept.
This area had burned before
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 34,234 ha in 2016, 32,094 ha in 2017, 19,097 ha in 2018, 40,470 ha in 2019, 23,802 ha in 2020, 3,668 ha in 2021, 32,422 ha in 2022, 11,048 ha in 2023, 38,589 ha in 2024, 7,109 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 98,522 ha that had burned before.
- 23,812 ha Cacolo fire, August 2019 29,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,493 ha Cacolo fire, August 2024 18,838 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,750 ha Cacolo fire, August 2019 9,671 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,697 ha Cacolo fire, August 2016 8,400 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,508 ha Cacolo fire, August 2024 7,423 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,760 ha Cacolo fire, August 2022 9,079 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,995 ha Cacolo fire, August 2016 6,519 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,604 ha Cacolo fire, August 2017 6,714 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Cacolo where it started110,604 ha reached on 29 Jul8.9 %
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 Aug | 28.8 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 4 Aug | 29.1 °C | 22 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Aug | 29.6 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Aug | 29.9 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Aug | 29.5 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Aug | 29.2 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Aug | 29.4 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Aug | 30.5 °C | 19 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Aug | 29.2 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Aug | 30.0 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 13 Aug | 29.1 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Aug | 28.8 °C | 33 % | 47 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 40 |
| 15 Aug | 29.7 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Aug | 29.0 °C | 25 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Aug | 29.5 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Aug | 30.0 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Aug | 30.0 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Aug | 29.6 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Aug | 30.2 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Aug | 30.8 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Aug | 31.8 °C | 21 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 24 Aug | 31.5 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Aug | 31.2 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Aug | 30.3 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Aug | 32.6 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 Aug | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 29 Aug | 30.3 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 30 Aug | 30.8 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 31 Aug | 30.4 °C | 32 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Sept | 31.9 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Sept | 32.7 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Sept | 30.5 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Sept | 29.0 °C | 41 % | 40 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 5 Sept | 27.8 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 7.9 mm | Very low 5 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 20 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 125 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 70: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 5,245Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cacolo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2026 to 10 September 2026 (44 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2026 to 4 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 109,963 hectares (1,099.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cacolo (110,604 ha, 8.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.
Report an error
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.