How long did the Cuilo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 August 2026 and 24 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 7,381 hectares (73.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuilo (5,971 ha, 0.6 %); Lucapa (1,471 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · 2026-08-16 → 2026-08-24

Cuilo fire, 16 August 2026 Cuilo, Lucapa

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2026, 12:17 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2026 in Cuilo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,381 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 158th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 239 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 7,381ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 16 Aug 2026 – 24 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 16 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 201; in a single hotspot: 137 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202123

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

41km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 3 Sept.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 566 ha in 2016, 1,752 ha in 2017, 883 ha in 2018, 1,634 ha in 2019, 2,176 ha in 2020, 65 ha in 2021, 2,066 ha in 2022, 1,255 ha in 2023, 261 ha in 2024, 1,105 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,339 ha that had burned before.

28 ha Lucapa fire, July 2018 9,274 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Cuilo where it started

5,971 ha reached on 16 Aug

0.6 %
Lucapa

1,471 ha reached on 17 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)
16 Aug	31.5 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
17 Aug	32.0 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
18 Aug	32.4 °C	13 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
19 Aug	32.1 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Aug	30.9 °C	19 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
21 Aug	30.5 °C	23 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Aug	32.4 °C	27 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
23 Aug	33.0 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
24 Aug	33.1 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Aug after	32.9 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
26 Aug after	28.5 °C	41 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
27 Aug after	33.9 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 Aug after	31.7 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
29 Aug after	29.0 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Aug after	31.2 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
31 Aug after	32.5 °C	31 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Sept after	33.5 °C	31 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
2 Sept after	33.3 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Sept after	32.0 °C	36 %	31 km/h	2.8 mm	Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Aug 2026

After · 31 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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 111 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 88: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak111 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM10117 µg/m³

Optical depth1.73

WHO 15

1415161718192021222324252627

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 · 201Every 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 16 August 2026 and 24 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 7,381 hectares (73.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cuilo (5,971 ha, 0.6 %); Lucapa (1,471 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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