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Cuemba fire, September 2025 Cuemba

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2025, 11:48 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2025 in Cuemba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,762 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 66 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area
8,762ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
11 Sept 2025 – 22 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
11 Sept
2025
Heat detections
267
in a single hotspot: 186 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept22 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718192022

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
39km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 532 ha in 2016, 718 ha in 2017, 957 ha in 2018, 1,398 ha in 2019, 1,833 ha in 2021, 1,276 ha in 2022, 4,030 ha in 2023, 1,979 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,569 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuemba where it started
    8,833 ha reached on 9 Sept
    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)
11 Sept 33.7 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Sept 32.6 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Sept 30.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Sept 31.5 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Sept 33.0 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Sept 33.1 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Sept 32.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Sept 33.6 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Sept 33.7 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Sept 33.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Sept 31.0 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
22 Sept 32.9 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
23 Sept after 29.9 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.8 mm High 28
24 Sept after 34.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Sept after 32.6 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Sept after 31.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Sept after 31.9 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
28 Sept after 33.2 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Sept after 35.4 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
30 Sept after 32.1 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Oct after 34.6 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 51
2 Oct after 29.2 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2025
After · 29 Sept 2025

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 9 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM1073 µg/m³
Optical depth1.59
910111213141516171819202122232425
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 · 267Every 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 Cuemba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 September 2025 and 22 September 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 8,762 hectares (87.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuemba (8,833 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.