How long did the Cuangar fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 August 2026 and 4 September 2026: 8 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 5,947 hectares (59.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cuangar (5,977 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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.

AO · Angola · 2026-08-28 → 2026-09-04

Cuangar fire, 28 August 2026 Cuangar

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2026, 13:29 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2026 in Cuangar, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,947 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 484th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 358 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 5,947ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 28 Aug 2026 – 4 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 28 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 112; in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start: 64; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 1.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 4 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

282930311234

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

55km/h · peak gust

4%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 496 ha in 2017, 1,463 ha in 2018, 522 ha in 2021, 184 ha in 2022, 383 ha in 2023, 1,063 ha in 2024, 1,283 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,506 ha that had burned before.

1,099 ha Cuangar fire, September 2025 8,022 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cuangar where it started

5,977 ha reached on 27 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)
27 Aug	33.2 °C	11 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
28 Aug	31.4 °C	12 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
29 Aug	31.0 °C	11 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
30 Aug	33.1 °C	4 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
31 Aug	34.7 °C	9 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
1 Sept	34.8 °C	11 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
2 Sept	34.3 °C	10 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
3 Sept	35.1 °C	11 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
4 Sept	33.3 °C	7 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
5 Sept after	31.2 °C	10 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
6 Sept after	33.2 °C	8 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
7 Sept after	35.5 °C	9 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
8 Sept after	34.2 °C	20 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
9 Sept after	31.6 °C	22 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
10 Sept after	31.5 °C	20 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
11 Sept after	32.8 °C	13 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
12 Sept after	34.9 °C	11 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
13 Sept after	35.9 °C	15 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
14 Sept after	33.6 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
15 Sept after	36.2 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
16 Sept after	37.2 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
17 Sept after	36.8 °C	10 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
18 Sept after	35.0 °C	16 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 70
19 Sept after	30.5 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 49
20 Sept after	31.8 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Aug 2026

After · 11 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 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak73 µg/m³

Days over the guideline17 days

PM1074 µg/m³

Optical depth0.71

WHO 15

2526272829303112345678910111213

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 · 112Every 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

18,174 haCuangar1 September 2026 · 7 days · 25 km away

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cuangar fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 August 2026 and 4 September 2026: 8 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 5,947 hectares (59.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cuangar (5,977 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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

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