Chitato fire, May 2026 Chitato
The fire started on 30 May 2026 in Chitato, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,817 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 142th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 226 in Angola in 2026, of 486.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Chitato · 2026Chitato · 2016
- Burnt area
- 7,817ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 30 May 2026 – 25 Jun 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 30 May
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 284
- in a single hotspot: 80 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 163MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 695 ha in 2016, 482 ha in 2017, 854 ha in 2018, 1,504 ha in 2019, 873 ha in 2020, 2,334 ha in 2021, 1,106 ha in 2022, 777 ha in 2023, 640 ha in 2024, 220 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,170 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Chitato where it started7,867 ha reached on 30 May0.7 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Jun | 31.6 °C | 28 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Jun | 32.3 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Jun | 31.9 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Jun | 32.7 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Jun | 32.5 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Jun | 32.6 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Jun | 32.0 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Jun | 31.3 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 14 Jun | 31.8 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Jun | 31.8 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Jun | 31.9 °C | 29 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Jun | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Jun | 31.5 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Jun | 31.0 °C | 43 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 20 Jun | 32.7 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Jun | 33.0 °C | 28 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Jun | 31.9 °C | 28 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Jun | 30.8 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Jun | 31.4 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Jun | 31.6 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Jun after | 31.6 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Jun after | 32.3 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Jun after | 30.8 °C | 34 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
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 12 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 79: 5.3 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 · 284Every 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 Chitato fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 May 2026 to 25 June 2026 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 June 2026 to 18 June 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,817 hectares (78.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chitato (7,867 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 18 June 2026 → 25 June 2026.
- Start date: 6 June 2026 → 30 May 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 June 2026 to 18 June 2026. 284 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.