How long did the Cuemba fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 September 2026 to 19 September 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 September 2026 to 19 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,300 hectares (113.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cuemba (11,392 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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 · 2026-09-06 → 2026-09-19

Cuemba fire, 6 September 2026 Cuemba

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2026, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2026 in Cuemba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,300 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 141 in Angola in 2026, of 485.

Burnt area: 11,300ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 6 Sept 2026 – 19 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 6 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 236; in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start: 25; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

47km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.2 mm on 20 Sept.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 941 ha in 2016, 1,083 ha in 2017, 450 ha in 2018, 1,813 ha in 2019, 1,756 ha in 2021, 922 ha in 2022, 4,519 ha in 2023, 2,048 ha in 2024, 6,783 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,211 ha that had burned before.

6,720 ha Cuemba fire, September 2025 8,762 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cuemba where it started

11,392 ha reached on 6 Sept

0.9 %

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)
6 Sept	32.2 °C	29 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 Sept	30.2 °C	38 %	30 km/h	2.5 mm	Moderate 11
8 Sept	31.9 °C	33 %	47 km/h	0.8 mm	High 25
9 Sept	30.1 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
10 Sept	31.2 °C	27 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Sept	32.0 °C	26 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
12 Sept	32.1 °C	27 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
13 Sept	31.9 °C	29 %	29 km/h	0.6 mm	High 28
14 Sept	34.6 °C	26 %	19 km/h	0.8 mm	High 27
15 Sept	30.5 °C	34 %	29 km/h	2.2 mm	Moderate 13
16 Sept	33.1 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Sept	34.0 °C	20 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
18 Sept	32.4 °C	30 %	40 km/h	0.2 mm	High 36
19 Sept	30.3 °C	35 %	38 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 19
20 Sept after	28.9 °C	44 %	30 km/h	9.2 mm	Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Aug 2026

After · 26 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 15 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 83 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak83 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM1084 µg/m³

Optical depth1.48

WHO 15

45678910111213141516171819202122

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 · 236Every 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?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 September 2026 to 19 September 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 September 2026 to 19 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,300 hectares (113.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cuemba (11,392 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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