How long did the Chitembo fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 August 2026 to 10 September 2026 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 August 2026 to 3 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,098 hectares (51.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Chitembo (5,117 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 2026-08-14 → 2026-09-10

Chitembo fire, 14 August 2026 Chitembo

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2026, 13:18 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2026 in Chitembo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,098 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 62th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 469 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 5,098ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 28days; 14 Aug 2026 – 10 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 14 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 172; in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

141617192122232425262728293031123457810

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

49km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 13 Sept.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11 ha in 2017, 677 ha in 2019, 892 ha in 2020, 1,627 ha in 2022, 772 ha in 2023, 1,419 ha in 2024, 4,622 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,468 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Chitembo where it started

5,117 ha reached on 14 Aug

0.3 %

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)
14 Aug	28.6 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
15 Aug	28.4 °C	26 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
16 Aug	27.2 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
17 Aug	27.6 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
18 Aug	28.9 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Aug	29.3 °C	14 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
20 Aug	29.5 °C	14 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
21 Aug	29.2 °C	16 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Aug	29.8 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Aug	30.4 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
24 Aug	30.8 °C	19 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
25 Aug	30.4 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Aug	30.0 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
27 Aug	31.4 °C	18 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Aug	30.9 °C	14 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
29 Aug	30.1 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Aug	30.8 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
31 Aug	31.1 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Sept	30.6 °C	27 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
2 Sept	31.7 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
3 Sept	31.8 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Sept	29.9 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
5 Sept	30.5 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
6 Sept	30.7 °C	21 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
7 Sept	29.9 °C	34 %	34 km/h	2.3 mm	Moderate 14
8 Sept	30.2 °C	33 %	49 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 21
9 Sept	28.3 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
10 Sept	29.7 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
11 Sept after	30.1 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 Sept after	31.4 °C	26 %	28 km/h	0.2 mm	High 34
13 Sept after	31.2 °C	32 %	28 km/h	2.6 mm	Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Aug 2026

After · 17 Sept 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 29 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 188 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 108: 7.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak188 µg/m³

Days over the guideline31 days

PM10193 µg/m³

Optical depth1.11

WHO 15

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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 · 172Every 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 Chitembo fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 August 2026 to 10 September 2026 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 August 2026 to 3 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,098 hectares (51.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Chitembo (5,117 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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