How long did the Chitato fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 June 2026 and 18 June 2026: 13 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 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.

AO · Angola · 2026-06-06 → 2026-06-18

Chitato fire, 6 June 2026 Chitato

Out · last detection 18 Jun 2026, 12:53 UTC

The fire started on 6 June 2026 in Chitato, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 13 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.

Burnt area: 7,817ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 6 Jun 2026 – 18 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 6 Jun; 2026
Heat detections: 284; in a single hotspot: 80 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 18 Jun 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jun18 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

89101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

31km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

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.

What happened to each town

Chitato where it started

7,867 ha reached on 30 May

0.7 %

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)
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 after	31.0 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
20 Jun after	32.7 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
21 Jun after	33.0 °C	28 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Jun after	31.9 °C	28 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Jun after	30.8 °C	29 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 Jun after	31.4 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Jun after	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.

↔

Before · 30 May 2026

After · 25 Jun 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 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).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM10110 µg/m³

Optical depth1.04

WHO 15

456789101112131415161718192021

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 · 284Every 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 Chitato fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 June 2026 and 18 June 2026: 13 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 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

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