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Chitembo fire, 28 August 2025 Chitembo, Cuvango

Out · last detection 16 Sept 2025, 12:00 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2025 in Chitembo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,152 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 23 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area
17,152ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
28 Aug 2025 – 15 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2025
Heat detections
620
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
6.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112345678910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
53km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 21 Sept.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,623 ha in 2016, 2,412 ha in 2017, 2,961 ha in 2018, 1,666 ha in 2019, 5,849 ha in 2020, 2,632 ha in 2021, 2,546 ha in 2022, 5,300 ha in 2023, 2,450 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,259 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Chitembo where it started
    17,180 ha reached on 21 Aug
    0.9 %
  2. Cuvango
    92 ha reached on 21 Aug
    0.0 %

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)
21 Aug 28.9 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Aug 29.5 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Aug 30.6 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Aug 30.6 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Aug 30.1 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Aug 28.2 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Aug 29.7 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Aug 28.7 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
29 Aug 29.9 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Aug 31.3 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Aug 30.8 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Sept 30.7 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Sept 30.4 °C 10 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Sept 28.8 °C 10 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Sept 29.2 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Sept 30.7 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Sept 31.2 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Sept 31.3 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Sept 32.0 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Sept 30.5 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 30.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Sept 30.8 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept 31.1 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Sept 31.5 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Sept 30.1 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept 31.9 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Sept after 31.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Sept after 31.3 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Sept after 31.4 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 32.5 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Sept after 31.8 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Sept after 29.1 °C 29 % 29 km/h 1.6 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2025
After · 22 Sept 2025

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 8 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 101 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 69: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak101 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM10104 µg/m³
Optical depth1.54
262728293031123456789101112131415161718
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 · 620Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chitembo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 August 2025 and 15 September 2025: 19 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 17,152 hectares (171.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chitembo (17,180 ha, 0.9 %); Cuvango (92 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, class Extreme.
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.

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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.