How long did the Cuemba fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 September 2026 to 28 September 2026 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 September 2026 to 21 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,123 hectares (61.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cuemba (6,166 ha, 0.5 %).

Is the Cuemba fire still active?

No fire detections since 28 Sept 2026, 12:42 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 · 2026-09-02 → 2026-09-28

Cuemba fire, 2 September 2026 Cuemba

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2026, 12:42 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2026 in Cuemba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,123 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 47th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 344 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cuemba · 2024 Cuemba · 2026 Cuemba · 2025 Cuemba · 2025

Burnt area: 6,123ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 27days; 2 Sept 2026 – 28 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 2 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 210; in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 143MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept28 Sept

Play back 28 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

2 Sept 5 Sept 11 Sept 14 Sept 17 Sept 19 Sept 21 Sept 26 Sept

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

46km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.3 mm on 30 Sept.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 66 ha in 2016, 134 ha in 2021, 218 ha in 2023, 3,295 ha in 2024, 3,489 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,676 ha that had burned before.

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.9% of the area of London (61 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Cuemba where it started

6,166 ha reached on 2 Sept

0.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
2 Sept	32.7 °C	17 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
3 Sept	30.2 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Sept	29.2 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Sept	28.1 °C	31 %	34 km/h	1.3 mm	High 22
6 Sept	30.4 °C	28 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
7 Sept	29.5 °C	37 %	30 km/h	3.0 mm	Low 10
8 Sept	30.4 °C	34 %	46 km/h	0.9 mm	High 23
9 Sept	28.9 °C	31 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
10 Sept	30.0 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
11 Sept	30.8 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
12 Sept	30.6 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
13 Sept	29.6 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.4 mm	High 31
14 Sept	32.3 °C	31 %	18 km/h	1.8 mm	Moderate 16
15 Sept	28.3 °C	41 %	24 km/h	2.8 mm	Low 7
16 Sept	31.6 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
17 Sept	32.2 °C	24 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
18 Sept	30.2 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Sept	28.6 °C	37 %	37 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 18
20 Sept	27.7 °C	45 %	34 km/h	9.5 mm	Very low 4
21 Sept	28.3 °C	43 %	23 km/h	2.7 mm	Very low 5
22 Sept	25.4 °C	52 %	25 km/h	5.9 mm	Very low 2
23 Sept	27.4 °C	47 %	35 km/h	3.1 mm	Very low 2
24 Sept	28.6 °C	43 %	32 km/h	1.9 mm	Very low 3
25 Sept	32.1 °C	20 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
26 Sept	32.0 °C	27 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
27 Sept	30.8 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
28 Sept	28.1 °C	43 %	35 km/h	4.9 mm	Very low 3
29 Sept after	30.7 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
30 Sept after	29.4 °C	39 %	30 km/h	7.3 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Aug 2026

After · 5 Oct 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 106 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 76: 5.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak106 µg/m³

Days over the guideline31 days

PM10109 µg/m³

Optical depth1.44

WHO 15

311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829301

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 · 210Every 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 2 September 2026 to 28 September 2026 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 September 2026 to 21 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,123 hectares (61.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cuemba (6,166 ha, 0.5 %).
Is the Cuemba fire still active?: No fire detections since 28 Sept 2026, 12:42 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 9 September 2026 to 21 September 2026. 210 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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