How long did the Cuemba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 August 2025 and 8 September 2025: 13 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 9,715 hectares (97.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cuemba (9,778 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 · 2025-08-27 → 2025-09-08

Cuemba fire, 27 August 2025 Cuemba

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2025, 12:32 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2025 in Cuemba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,715 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 56 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area: 9,715ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 27 Aug 2025 – 8 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 27 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 379; in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug8 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

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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

50km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 913 ha in 2016, 184 ha in 2017, 1,547 ha in 2019, 750 ha in 2021, 542 ha in 2022, 1,682 ha in 2023, 3,874 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,735 ha that had burned before.

1,903 ha Cuemba fire, August 2024 8,313 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cuemba where it started

9,778 ha reached on 20 Aug

0.7 %

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)
20 Aug	30.6 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
21 Aug	30.2 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
22 Aug	30.9 °C	17 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
23 Aug	32.2 °C	16 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
24 Aug	31.8 °C	15 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
25 Aug	29.6 °C	26 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
26 Aug	30.5 °C	36 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
27 Aug	32.0 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
28 Aug	28.5 °C	41 %	26 km/h	0.7 mm	High 23
29 Aug	32.2 °C	22 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 Aug	32.7 °C	16 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
31 Aug	32.1 °C	17 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
1 Sept	31.7 °C	17 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
2 Sept	32.0 °C	14 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
3 Sept	31.1 °C	11 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
4 Sept	31.4 °C	16 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
5 Sept	32.9 °C	15 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
6 Sept	32.6 °C	17 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
7 Sept	32.3 °C	19 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
8 Sept	32.4 °C	22 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
9 Sept after	30.9 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
10 Sept after	31.6 °C	25 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Sept after	33.9 °C	14 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
12 Sept after	31.5 °C	21 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
13 Sept after	30.1 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
14 Sept after	29.2 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
15 Sept after	32.4 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Sept after	32.7 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Sept after	31.8 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
18 Sept after	32.8 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
19 Sept after	32.7 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Aug 2025

After · 15 Sept 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 7 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 152 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 95: 6.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak152 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM10156 µg/m³

Optical depth1.87

WHO 15

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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 · 379Every 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 Cuemba fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 August 2025 and 8 September 2025: 13 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 9,715 hectares (97.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cuemba (9,778 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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