How long did the Cuangar fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2025 and 1 October 2025: 7 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 6,733 hectares (67.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cuangar (6,773 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very 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.

AO · Angola · 2025-09-25 → 2025-10-01

Cuangar fire, 25 September 2025 Cuangar

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2025, 23:28 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2025 in Cuangar, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,733 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 392th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 102 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area: 6,733ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 25 Sept 2025 – 1 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 25 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 153; in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start: 54; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 240MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 1 Oct 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept1 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

25 Sept 27 Sept 28 Sept 29 Sept 30 Sept 1 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

47km/h · peak gust

5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 766 ha in 2016, 519 ha in 2017, 2,999 ha in 2019, 314 ha in 2020, 344 ha in 2021, 240 ha in 2022, 1,095 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,276 ha that had burned before.

1,406 ha Cuangar fire, September 2019 7,979 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cuangar where it started

6,773 ha reached on 24 Sept

0.4 %

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	Danger (FWI)
25 Sept	36.6 °C	12 %	36 km/h	Extreme 54
26 Sept	36.1 °C	13 %	30 km/h	Extreme 56
27 Sept	35.6 °C	5 %	33 km/h	Extreme 57
28 Sept	34.1 °C	5 %	41 km/h	Extreme 66
29 Sept	34.9 °C	10 %	44 km/h	Extreme 68
30 Sept	36.5 °C	9 %	43 km/h	Extreme 67
1 Oct	36.7 °C	13 %	47 km/h	Very extreme 71
2 Oct after	36.6 °C	12 %	46 km/h	Extreme 69
3 Oct after	37.2 °C	12 %	45 km/h	Extreme 69
4 Oct after	37.2 °C	10 %	34 km/h	Extreme 57
5 Oct after	37.2 °C	5 %	49 km/h	Very extreme 76
6 Oct after	37.6 °C	5 %	46 km/h	Very extreme 73
7 Oct after	38.1 °C	7 %	30 km/h	Extreme 62
8 Oct after	37.6 °C	9 %	52 km/h	Very extreme 76
9 Oct after	36.9 °C	11 %	52 km/h	Very extreme 78
10 Oct after	35.6 °C	15 %	43 km/h	Extreme 63
11 Oct after	35.0 °C	17 %	23 km/h	Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Sept 2025

After · 8 Oct 2025

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 23 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1039 µg/m³

Optical depth0.80

WHO 15

23242526272829301234

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 · 153Every 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 Cuangar fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2025 and 1 October 2025: 7 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 6,733 hectares (67.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cuangar (6,773 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very 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

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