How long did the Jamba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 September 2026 and 21 September 2026: 11 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 5,518 hectares (55.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Jamba (5,557 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 · 2026-09-11 → 2026-09-21

Jamba fire, September 2026 Jamba

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2026, 12:53 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2026 in Jamba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,518 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 55th largest in Huíla since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 404 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 5,518ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 11 Sept 2026 – 21 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 11 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 154; in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start: 50; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 1.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 22 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept21 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

121314151617182122

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

53km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 2 Oct.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,313 ha in 2016, 1,086 ha in 2017, 1,167 ha in 2018, 68 ha in 2019, 470 ha in 2020, 1,158 ha in 2024, 2,473 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,705 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Jamba where it started

5,557 ha

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)
4 Sept	32.5 °C	14 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
5 Sept	31.5 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
6 Sept	32.0 °C	15 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
7 Sept	34.2 °C	10 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
8 Sept	34.2 °C	23 %	51 km/h	1.6 mm	Very high 40
9 Sept	28.4 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.9 mm	High 30
10 Sept	31.9 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
11 Sept	33.5 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
12 Sept	34.0 °C	19 %	25 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 42
13 Sept	33.3 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.9 mm	High 34
14 Sept	32.8 °C	22 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
15 Sept	35.2 °C	13 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
16 Sept	35.5 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
17 Sept	34.9 °C	18 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
18 Sept	34.2 °C	15 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
19 Sept	31.9 °C	26 %	53 km/h	0.5 mm	Extreme 54
20 Sept	32.1 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
21 Sept	32.0 °C	19 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
22 Sept after	32.8 °C	15 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
23 Sept after	29.8 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 39
24 Sept after	31.6 °C	28 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
25 Sept after	36.0 °C	15 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Sept after	35.0 °C	13 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
27 Sept after	35.0 °C	14 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
28 Sept after	35.5 °C	13 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
29 Sept after	35.0 °C	13 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
30 Sept after	34.5 °C	22 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
1 Oct after	31.2 °C	33 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 38
2 Oct after	31.5 °C	31 %	34 km/h	1.8 mm	Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Sept 2026

After · 28 Sept 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 30 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 121 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak121 µg/m³

Days over the guideline22 days

PM10127 µg/m³

Optical depth1.12

WHO 15

234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829301

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 · 154Every 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 11 September 2026 and 21 September 2026: 11 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 5,518 hectares (55.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Jamba (5,557 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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