How long did the Cuilo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2026 and 13 August 2026: 9 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 5,126 hectares (51.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cuilo (5,169 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 · 2026-08-05 → 2026-08-13

Cuilo fire, 5 August 2026 Cuilo

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2026, 12:42 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2026 in Cuilo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,126 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 386th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 466 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 5,126ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 5 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 5 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 78; in a single hotspot: 141 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 11 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

56781011

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

45km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 339 ha in 2016, 1,948 ha in 2017, 1,642 ha in 2019, 2,334 ha in 2020, 1,119 ha in 2021, 922 ha in 2022, 1,721 ha in 2023, 169 ha in 2024, 841 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,931 ha that had burned before.

1,948 ha Cuilo fire, August 2017 14,332 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cuilo where it started

5,169 ha reached on 5 Aug

0.5 %

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)
5 Aug	30.7 °C	20 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
6 Aug	31.6 °C	16 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
7 Aug	30.9 °C	21 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Aug	30.9 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Aug	30.4 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
10 Aug	31.2 °C	26 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
11 Aug	29.7 °C	33 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Aug	32.1 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
13 Aug	30.8 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 39
14 Aug after	31.1 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Aug after	31.5 °C	28 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Aug after	30.8 °C	25 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
17 Aug after	31.6 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
18 Aug after	31.9 °C	15 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
19 Aug after	31.5 °C	16 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Aug after	30.4 °C	20 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
21 Aug after	29.7 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
22 Aug after	31.6 °C	29 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
23 Aug after	32.4 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
24 Aug after	32.4 °C	26 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
25 Aug after	32.1 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Jul 2026

After · 20 Aug 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 13 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 92 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 67: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak92 µg/m³

Days over the guideline16 days

PM1095 µg/m³

Optical depth1.29

WHO 15

3456789101112131415161718

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 · 78Every 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 Cuilo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2026 and 13 August 2026: 9 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 5,126 hectares (51.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cuilo (5,169 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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