How long did the Libolo (Calulo) fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 July 2026 and 31 July 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 10,580 hectares (105.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Libolo (Calulo) (10,648 ha, 1.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 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.

AO · Angola · 2026-07-21 → 2026-07-31

Libolo (Calulo) fire, 21 July 2026 Libolo (Calulo)

Out · last detection 1 Aug 2026, 12:27 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2026 in Libolo (Calulo), Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,580 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Cuanza Sul since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 153 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 10,580ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 21 Jul 2026 – 31 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 21 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 191; in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul31 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

21222324252627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

45km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,224 ha in 2016, 480 ha in 2017, 1,303 ha in 2018, 2,014 ha in 2019, 5,397 ha in 2020, 1,272 ha in 2021, 124 ha in 2022, 2,151 ha in 2023, 941 ha in 2024, 4,201 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,068 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Libolo (Calulo) where it started

10,648 ha reached on 18 Jul

1.8 %

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)
18 Jul	27.7 °C	21 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
19 Jul	30.1 °C	19 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
20 Jul	26.6 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
21 Jul	26.6 °C	45 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
22 Jul	30.2 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Jul	31.9 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
24 Jul	31.9 °C	18 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
25 Jul	31.3 °C	15 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
26 Jul	30.2 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
27 Jul	29.9 °C	26 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
28 Jul	29.0 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
29 Jul	29.3 °C	20 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Jul	28.3 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Jul	30.2 °C	26 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Aug after	28.6 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
2 Aug after	29.1 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
3 Aug after	28.8 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Aug after	27.4 °C	44 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Aug after	27.9 °C	42 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
6 Aug after	28.9 °C	34 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
7 Aug after	30.8 °C	21 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
8 Aug after	30.2 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Aug after	29.1 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
10 Aug after	29.8 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Aug after	29.7 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
12 Aug after	31.2 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Jul 2026

After · 7 Aug 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 26 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 329 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 171: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak329 µg/m³

Days over the guideline21 days

PM10331 µg/m³

Optical depth1.46

WHO 15

1617181920212223242526272829303112345

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 · 191Every 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 21 July 2026 and 31 July 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 10,580 hectares (105.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Libolo (Calulo) (10,648 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 45 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

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