Caimbambo fire, September 2025 Caimbambo
The fire started on 24 September 2025 in Caimbambo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,211 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 60 in Angola in 2025, of 191.
- Burnt area
- 9,211ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 24 Sept 2025 – 10 Oct 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 303
- in a single hotspot: 72 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.7GW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 18 Oct.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 388 ha in 2016, 2,931 ha in 2017, 1,196 ha in 2019, 2,683 ha in 2020, 1,123 ha in 2021, 1,633 ha in 2022, 2,534 ha in 2023, 2,631 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,571 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Caimbambo where it started9,275 ha reached on 24 Sept2.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Sept | 29.4 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 23 |
| 25 Sept | 27.5 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Sept | 27.5 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 27 Sept | 28.4 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Sept | 30.9 °C | 21 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Sept | 27.9 °C | 33 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Sept | 26.0 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Oct | 26.9 °C | 39 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Oct | 28.0 °C | 41 % | 39 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Oct | 27.6 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Oct | 29.3 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Oct | 29.5 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Oct | 29.9 °C | 29 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 7 Oct | 28.9 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Oct | 28.3 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Oct | 29.8 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 1.6 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Oct | 29.7 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Oct after | 29.2 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Oct after | 29.8 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Oct after | 26.5 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Oct after | 28.8 °C | 39 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Oct after | 27.3 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 3.2 mm | Low 8 |
| 16 Oct after | 29.8 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 17 Oct after | 27.6 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Oct after | 28.7 °C | 41 % | 35 km/h | 2.5 mm | Low 10 |
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 8 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 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 · 303Every 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 Caimbambo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 September 2025 and 10 October 2025: 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 9,211 hectares (92.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Caimbambo (9,275 ha, 2.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 47 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
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.