How long did the Libolo (Calulo) fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2025 and 19 September 2025: 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 5,052 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Libolo (Calulo) (5,085 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 54 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.

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 · 2025-09-09 → 2025-09-19

Libolo (Calulo) fire, 9 September 2025 Libolo (Calulo)

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2025, 12:45 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2025 in Libolo (Calulo), Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,052 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 78th largest in Cuanza Sul since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 189 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area: 5,052ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 9 Sept 2025 – 19 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 9 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 87; in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start: 17; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 996MW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

101113141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

36km/h · peak gust

54%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,035 ha in 2016, 2,536 ha in 2017, 1,622 ha in 2018, 635 ha in 2019, 1,419 ha in 2021, 1,593 ha in 2022, 64 ha in 2023, 865 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,533 ha that had burned before.

977 ha Libolo (Calulo) fire, August 2016 6,796 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Libolo (Calulo) where it started

5,085 ha reached on 2 Sept

0.9 %

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)
9 Sept	25.5 °C	61 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
10 Sept	26.3 °C	58 %	32 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
11 Sept	26.2 °C	60 %	33 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 15
12 Sept	26.4 °C	54 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
13 Sept	27.1 °C	56 %	33 km/h	1.9 mm	Low 7
14 Sept	28.1 °C	57 %	36 km/h	4.4 mm	Very low 4
15 Sept	27.4 °C	59 %	32 km/h	0.9 mm	Low 7
16 Sept	27.9 °C	57 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
17 Sept	26.3 °C	61 %	32 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 12
18 Sept	27.1 °C	58 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 14
19 Sept	27.8 °C	56 %	35 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 13
20 Sept after	25.9 °C	66 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 13
21 Sept after	25.2 °C	69 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
22 Sept after	27.3 °C	62 %	32 km/h	2.8 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Sept 2025

After · 26 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 11 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 92 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak92 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM1094 µg/m³

Optical depth1.30

WHO 15

78910111213141516171819202122

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 · 87Every 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 Libolo (Calulo) fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 September 2025 and 19 September 2025: 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 5,052 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Libolo (Calulo) (5,085 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 54 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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