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AO · Angola · –

Cunda-dia-Baze fire, 31 July 2026 Cunda-dia-Baze, Marimba

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2026, 13:21 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2026 in Cunda-dia-Baze, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,101 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 110 in Angola in 2026, of 487.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
13,101ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
31 Jul 2026 – 24 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
31 Jul
2026
Heat detections
370
in a single hotspot: 271 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
530MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul24 Aug
25 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

31 Jul 2026 · 55 MW · 8 1 Aug 2026 · 1,300 MW · 21 2 Aug 2026 · 140 MW · 4 3 Aug 2026 · 173 MW · 15 4 Aug 2026 · 123 MW · 20 5 Aug 2026 · 2,578 MW · 40 6 Aug 2026 · 82 MW · 7 7 Aug 2026 · 194 MW · 19 10 Aug 2026 · 1,799 MW · 47 11 Aug 2026 · 650 MW · 31 12 Aug 2026 · 2,016 MW · 41 13 Aug 2026 · 1,098 MW · 31 14 Aug 2026 · 35 MW · 5 15 Aug 2026 · 45 MW · 6 16 Aug 2026 · 82 MW · 11 17 Aug 2026 · 1,104 MW · 42 19 Aug 2026 · 18 MW · 4 21 Aug 2026 · 27 MW · 2 22 Aug 2026 · 1 MW · 1 23 Aug 2026 · 11 MW · 3 24 Aug 2026 · 85 MW · 9 25 Aug 2026 · 32 MW · 3
31 Jul 5 Aug 12 Aug 17 Aug 24 Aug

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

Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (31 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

34°high
36km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 3 Sept.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,355 ha in 2016, 4,543 ha in 2017, 1,378 ha in 2018, 2,336 ha in 2019, 3,759 ha in 2020, 4,196 ha in 2021, 5,865 ha in 2022, 3,718 ha in 2023, 5,849 ha in 2024, 4,976 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,736 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.3% of the area of London (131 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

  1. Cunda-dia-Baze where it started
    8,567 ha reached on 31 Jul
    2.5 %
  2. 4,662 ha reached on 31 Jul
    0.8 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.32 ha
Residents≈ 80

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.32 hectares of built-up land and about 80 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with 60 days without rain: 84 % of the area in Angola

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
31 Jul 32.3 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Aug 31.5 °C 34 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Aug 32.7 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Aug 30.5 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Aug 31.4 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Aug 32.3 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Aug 33.3 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug 32.1 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug 32.0 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Aug 31.2 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Aug 31.5 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Aug 31.5 °C 36 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Aug 33.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 33.0 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug 33.6 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 35
15 Aug 33.4 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Aug 32.2 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Aug 33.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug 33.9 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug 33.7 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Aug 32.8 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug 30.5 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Aug 32.3 °C 34 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Aug 34.1 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Aug 33.5 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Aug after 32.5 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Aug after 32.3 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
27 Aug after 35.4 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Aug after 32.7 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.5 mm High 31
29 Aug after 31.7 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Aug after 32.6 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Aug after 32.2 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
1 Sept after 36.3 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.8 mm High 23
2 Sept after 36.4 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
3 Sept after 32.8 °C 43 % 27 km/h 2.7 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2026
After · 31 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 19 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 186 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 126: 8.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak186 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM10194 µg/m³
Optical depth2.07
5 Aug9 Aug13 Aug17 Aug21 Aug
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 · 370Every 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 Cunda-dia-Baze fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 July 2026 to 24 August 2026 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 August 2026 to 19 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,101 hectares (131.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cunda-dia-Baze (8,567 ha, 2.5 %); Marimba (4,662 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 36 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

History of this page · 6 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 19 August 2026 → 24 August 2026.
  2. Start date: 7 August 2026 → 31 July 2026.
  3. Last day with fire: 24 August 2026 → 19 August 2026.
  4. Start date: 31 July 2026 → 7 August 2026.
  5. Last day with fire: 19 August 2026 → 24 August 2026.
  6. Start date: 7 August 2026 → 31 July 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 August 2026 to 19 August 2026. 370 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.