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AO · Angola · →

Cuango fire, June 2026 Cuango

Out · last detection 7 Jul 2026, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 23 June 2026 in Cuango, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,493 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 323th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 408 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
5,493ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
23 Jun 2026 – 6 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Jun
2026
Heat detections
105
in a single hotspot: 204 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jun6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

23262730123467

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
43km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 238 ha in 2016, 2,651 ha in 2017, 616 ha in 2019, 2,965 ha in 2020, 396 ha in 2021, 186 ha in 2022, 803 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,282 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuango where it started
    5,533 ha reached on 23 Jun
    0.8 %

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)
23 Jun 30.8 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jun 31.4 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jun 31.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Jun 30.8 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Jun 31.5 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jun 30.1 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jun 31.6 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Jun 32.0 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Jul 31.9 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Jul 31.9 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Jul 31.7 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Jul 32.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Jul 32.3 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Jul 31.6 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jul after 31.4 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Jul after 30.6 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Jul after 30.9 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jul after 31.2 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Jul after 30.7 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jul after 32.0 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Jul after 32.1 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Jul after 32.7 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jul after 31.5 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Jul after 29.9 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jun 2026
After · 13 Jul 2026

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 2 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 94 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak94 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM1098 µg/m³
Optical depth0.95
21222324252627282930123456789
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 · 105Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cuango fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 June 2026 and 6 July 2026: 14 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 5,493 hectares (54.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuango (5,533 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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

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.