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Cuilo fire, 3 August 2026 Cuilo

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2026, 13:08 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2026 in Cuilo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,780 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 114 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
12,780ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
3 Aug 2026 – 14 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
3 Aug
2026
Heat detections
265
in a single hotspot: 338 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

5678101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
41km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,623 ha in 2016, 4,777 ha in 2017, 3,338 ha in 2018, 2,099 ha in 2019, 8,057 ha in 2020, 1,015 ha in 2021, 2,362 ha in 2022, 2,260 ha in 2023, 3,506 ha in 2024, 1,164 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,054 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuilo where it started
    12,881 ha reached on 31 Jul
    1.3 %

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)
31 Jul 29.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Aug 30.2 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Aug 30.1 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug 29.3 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug 30.0 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug 30.4 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Aug 31.3 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 30.4 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 30.4 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Aug 30.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug 30.5 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Aug 28.6 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Aug 32.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Aug 30.8 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 38
14 Aug 30.8 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Aug after 31.1 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Aug after 30.4 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 31.2 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug after 31.5 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Aug after 31.0 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug after 30.0 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug after 29.1 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug after 31.0 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug after 32.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug after 32.1 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2026
After · 21 Aug 2026

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 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 86 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak86 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM1090 µg/m³
Optical depth1.40
2930311234567891011121314151617
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 · 265Every 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 Cuilo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2026 and 14 August 2026: 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 12,780 hectares (127.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuilo (12,881 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.