How long did the Jamba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2025 and 12 September 2025: 14 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 10,898 hectares (109.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Jamba (10,938 ha, 1.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.

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 · 2025-08-30 → 2025-09-12

Jamba fire, August 2025 Jamba

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2025, 12:56 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2025 in Jamba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,898 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Huíla since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 49 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area: 10,898ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 30 Aug 2025 – 12 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 30 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 600; in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start: 51; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 4.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug12 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

303112345678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

53km/h · peak gust

9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,378 ha in 2017, 2,225 ha in 2018, 391 ha in 2022, 3,342 ha in 2023, 2,556 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,198 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Jamba where it started

10,938 ha reached on 23 Aug

1.0 %

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)
23 Aug	32.4 °C	9 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
24 Aug	32.5 °C	9 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
25 Aug	31.7 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
26 Aug	29.3 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Aug	30.5 °C	29 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
28 Aug	30.2 °C	28 %	27 km/h	5.3 mm	Low 8
29 Aug	31.2 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
30 Aug	32.7 °C	11 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
31 Aug	32.5 °C	11 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
1 Sept	32.7 °C	10 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
2 Sept	32.2 °C	10 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
3 Sept	30.8 °C	11 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
4 Sept	31.2 °C	12 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
5 Sept	32.3 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
6 Sept	33.0 °C	12 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
7 Sept	33.2 °C	12 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
8 Sept	33.0 °C	11 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
9 Sept	32.8 °C	14 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
10 Sept	32.7 °C	17 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
11 Sept	32.7 °C	12 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
12 Sept	33.6 °C	12 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
13 Sept after	33.5 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
14 Sept after	31.2 °C	25 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
15 Sept after	32.7 °C	20 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
16 Sept after	33.6 °C	14 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
17 Sept after	32.9 °C	19 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
18 Sept after	32.4 °C	21 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Sept after	33.9 °C	19 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 Sept after	33.8 °C	16 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
21 Sept after	31.2 °C	28 %	29 km/h	0.3 mm	High 38
22 Sept after	31.6 °C	28 %	22 km/h	2.3 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 23 Aug 2025

After · 19 Sept 2025

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 4 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 85 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak85 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM1087 µg/m³

Optical depth1.40

WHO 15

28293031123456789101112131415

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 · 600Every 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 Jamba fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2025 and 12 September 2025: 14 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 10,898 hectares (109.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Jamba (10,938 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
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