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Cuito fire, July 2026 Cuito

Out · last detection 2 Aug 2026, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2026 in Cuito, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,418 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 44th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 314 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
6,418ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
26 Jul 2026 – 3 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
26 Jul
2026
Heat detections
188
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul3 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

26272829303112

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
41km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 395 ha in 2016, 1,046 ha in 2018, 1,419 ha in 2019, 289 ha in 2020, 387 ha in 2022, 3,408 ha in 2023, 1,010 ha in 2024, 2,603 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,073 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Cuito where it started
    6,466 ha reached on 19 Jul
    1.4 %

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)
19 Jul 26.7 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Jul 27.8 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Jul 28.1 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jul 28.6 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jul 29.1 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jul 28.9 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jul 27.5 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul 26.7 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Jul 26.7 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul 26.4 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul 26.5 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul 27.7 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul 28.0 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Aug 27.5 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Aug 27.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug 27.2 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug after 27.1 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Aug after 27.9 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Aug after 28.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug after 28.0 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Aug after 28.1 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug after 28.3 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Aug after 28.5 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Aug after 28.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug after 28.3 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug after 28.8 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug after 28.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Aug after 28.5 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Aug after 27.3 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug after 27.7 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Aug after 28.9 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug after 29.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug after 29.3 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jul 2026
After · 10 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 6 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 123 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 67: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak123 µg/m³
Days over the guideline28 days
PM10128 µg/m³
Optical depth0.90
17181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213
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 · 188Every 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 Cuito fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 July 2026 and 3 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 6,418 hectares (64.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cuito (6,466 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 41 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

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.