How long did the Calandula fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 August 2026 and 22 August 2026: 6 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 6,581 hectares (65.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Calandula (6,616 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 · 2026-08-17 → 2026-08-22

Calandula fire, August 2026 Calandula

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2026, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2026 in Calandula, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,581 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 51th largest in Malanje since 2016 (of 127 with a page). Number 297 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 6,581ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 17 Aug 2026 – 22 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 17 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 152; in a single hotspot: 173 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 808MW; sum of detected power

Play back 22 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug22 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1719202122

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

41km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.9 mm on 3 Sept.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,922 ha in 2016, 3,967 ha in 2017, 570 ha in 2018, 3,776 ha in 2019, 814 ha in 2020, 604 ha in 2021, 243 ha in 2022, 360 ha in 2023, 1,507 ha in 2024, 2,825 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,688 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Calandula where it started

6,616 ha reached on 10 Aug

0.9 %

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)
10 Aug	30.6 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Aug	30.8 °C	35 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
12 Aug	31.1 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
13 Aug	31.2 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Aug	31.6 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
15 Aug	31.1 °C	40 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
16 Aug	29.8 °C	42 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
17 Aug	32.1 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
18 Aug	31.8 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
19 Aug	32.3 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
20 Aug	31.2 °C	25 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
21 Aug	29.2 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
22 Aug	31.6 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
23 Aug after	32.0 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
24 Aug after	31.0 °C	42 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
25 Aug after	31.0 °C	38 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
26 Aug after	31.9 °C	39 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
27 Aug after	33.9 °C	35 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
28 Aug after	30.5 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
29 Aug after	30.8 °C	41 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
30 Aug after	31.2 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
31 Aug after	29.9 °C	44 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
1 Sept after	34.8 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
2 Sept after	34.8 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Sept after	29.8 °C	51 %	30 km/h	6.9 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Aug 2026

After · 29 Aug 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 19 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 235 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 153: 10 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak235 µg/m³

Days over the guideline24 days

PM10243 µg/m³

Optical depth2.27

WHO 15

8910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031

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 · 152Every 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 Calandula fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 August 2026 and 22 August 2026: 6 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 6,581 hectares (65.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Calandula (6,616 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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