How long did the Cuangar fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 September 2026 and 29 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 8,001 hectares (80.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cuangar (8,022 ha, 0.4 %).

Is the Cuangar fire still active?

No fire detections since 28 Sept 2026, 12:40 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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 · 2026-09-22 → 2026-09-29

Cuangar fire, 22 September 2026 Cuangar

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2026, 12:40 UTC

The fire started on 22 September 2026 in Cuangar, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,001 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 285th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 216 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 8,001ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 22 Sept 2026 – 29 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 22 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 176; in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 28 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Sept29 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

222425262728

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

43km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 12 Oct.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,677 ha in 2016, 2,037 ha in 2017, 1,484 ha in 2018, 70 ha in 2019, 2,495 ha in 2021, 389 ha in 2022, 3,328 ha in 2023, 2,225 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,889 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cuangar where it started

8,022 ha

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	Rain	Danger (FWI)
22 Sept	30.5 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
23 Sept	31.8 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
24 Sept	34.2 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
25 Sept	34.7 °C	15 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
26 Sept	35.3 °C	12 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
27 Sept	36.2 °C	13 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
28 Sept	36.1 °C	14 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
29 Sept	35.1 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
30 Sept after	33.1 °C	30 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 Oct after	30.0 °C	48 %	32 km/h	2.9 mm	Low 8
2 Oct after	28.9 °C	36 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
3 Oct after	29.3 °C	26 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Oct after	32.3 °C	21 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Oct after	33.8 °C	14 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
6 Oct after	33.4 °C	10 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
7 Oct after	33.9 °C	10 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
8 Oct after	34.7 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 46
9 Oct after	32.5 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 41
10 Oct after	33.6 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
11 Oct after	33.7 °C	23 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
12 Oct after	30.2 °C	38 %	28 km/h	2.0 mm	Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 15 Sept 2026

After · 6 Oct 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 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak59 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM1062 µg/m³

Optical depth0.89

WHO 15

202122232425262728293012345678

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 · 176Every 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 22 September 2026 and 29 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 8,001 hectares (80.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cuangar (8,022 ha, 0.4 %).
Is the Cuangar fire still active?: No fire detections since 28 Sept 2026, 12:40 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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