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AO · Angola · →

Luacano fire, June 2026 Luacano

Out · last detection 27 Jun 2026, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 22 June 2026 in Luacano, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,131 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 59th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 341 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
6,131ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
22 Jun 2026 – 27 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Jun
2026
Heat detections
81
in a single hotspot: 118 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jun27 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

222427

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
36km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 826 ha in 2016, 553 ha in 2017, 1,073 ha in 2018, 391 ha in 2019, 941 ha in 2020, 1,227 ha in 2021, 998 ha in 2023, 809 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,378 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luacano where it started
    6,173 ha reached on 22 Jun
    0.4 %

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)
22 Jun 29.2 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jun 28.9 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Jun 27.5 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jun 27.8 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jun 28.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jun 28.2 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jun after 28.5 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jun after 28.5 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jun after 28.5 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jul after 29.5 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Jul after 30.5 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Jul after 30.1 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Jul after 29.6 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Jul after 28.5 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Jul after 28.2 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jul after 27.0 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jun 2026
After · 4 Jul 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 29 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 42 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak42 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.89
2021222324252627282930
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 · 81Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Luacano fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 June 2026 and 27 June 2026: 6 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 6,131 hectares (61.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luacano (6,173 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

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.