How long did the Cuangar fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 September 2025 and 6 October 2025: 12 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 10,294 hectares (102.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cuangar (10,265 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, 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 → 2025-10-06

Cuangar fire, 25 September 2025 Cuangar

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2025, 12:06 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2025 in Cuangar, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,294 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 188th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 658 with a page). Number 54 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area: 10,294ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 25 Sept 2025 – 6 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 25 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 241; in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start: 51; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 4.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 7 Oct 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept6 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

27282930134567

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

50km/h · peak gust

5%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 14 Oct.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 382 ha in 2016, 14 ha in 2023, 1,199 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

Cuangar where it started

10,265 ha reached on 27 Sept

0.5 %

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)
25 Sept	36.4 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
26 Sept	36.4 °C	14 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
27 Sept	35.6 °C	5 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
28 Sept	34.1 °C	5 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
29 Sept	34.6 °C	11 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
30 Sept	36.4 °C	10 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
1 Oct	36.5 °C	13 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 70
2 Oct	36.4 °C	12 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
3 Oct	37.1 °C	12 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
4 Oct	37.4 °C	10 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
5 Oct	37.0 °C	5 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 76
6 Oct	37.5 °C	5 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 75
7 Oct after	38.1 °C	7 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
8 Oct after	37.6 °C	9 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 75
9 Oct after	36.9 °C	11 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 78
10 Oct after	35.6 °C	15 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
11 Oct after	34.8 °C	17 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
12 Oct after	35.2 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 56
13 Oct after	34.3 °C	18 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
14 Oct after	34.5 °C	19 %	43 km/h	2.3 mm	High 36

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Sept 2025

After · 13 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

2324252627282930123456789

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 · 241Every 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 6 October 2025: 12 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 10,294 hectares (102.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cuangar (10,265 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, 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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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