How long did the Cuemba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 August 2026 and 4 September 2026: 10 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 9,627 hectares (96.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuemba (8,060 ha, 0.6 %); Cacolo (1,613 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

AO · Angola · 2026-08-26 → 2026-09-04

Cuemba fire, 26 August 2026 Cuemba, Cacolo

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2026, 11:51 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Cuemba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,627 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 172 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 9,627ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 26 Aug 2026 – 4 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 26 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 178; in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 4 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2627282930311234

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

51km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 5 Sept.

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 94 ha in 2016, 3,791 ha in 2017, 600 ha in 2020, 408 ha in 2021, 259 ha in 2022, 2,853 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,120 ha that had burned before.

3,791 ha Cuemba fire, August 2017 6,859 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cuemba where it started

8,060 ha reached on 22 Aug

0.6 %
Cacolo

1,613 ha reached on 22 Aug

0.1 %

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 Aug	31.4 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
23 Aug	32.2 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
24 Aug	31.8 °C	22 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
25 Aug	32.2 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
26 Aug	30.9 °C	27 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
27 Aug	33.2 °C	20 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
28 Aug	31.9 °C	24 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
29 Aug	31.0 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
30 Aug	31.3 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
31 Aug	32.5 °C	25 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Sept	33.3 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
2 Sept	33.5 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
3 Sept	31.2 °C	30 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
4 Sept	30.2 °C	39 %	44 km/h	0.4 mm	High 34
5 Sept after	27.3 °C	45 %	27 km/h	3.4 mm	Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 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 3 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 134 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 90: 6.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak134 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM10137 µg/m³

Optical depth1.76

WHO 15

2021222324252627282930311234567

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 · 178Every 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 26 August 2026 and 4 September 2026: 10 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 9,627 hectares (96.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuemba (8,060 ha, 0.6 %); Cacolo (1,613 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

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