Lubalo fire, 28 July 2026 Lubalo
The fire started on 28 July 2026 in Lubalo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 48,021 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 20 in Angola in 2026, of 487.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Lubalo · 2020Lubalo · 2019Lubalo · 2023Lubalo · 2019
- Burnt area
- 48,021ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 39days
- 28 Jul 2026 – 4 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 28 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,257
- in a single hotspot: 350 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 605MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.5 mm on 5 Sept.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18,182 ha in 2016, 17,451 ha in 2017, 7,496 ha in 2018, 20,913 ha in 2019, 21,172 ha in 2020, 8,509 ha in 2021, 13,068 ha in 2022, 14,964 ha in 2023, 16,851 ha in 2024, 7,891 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 42,717 ha that had burned before.
- 9,517 ha Lubalo fire, July 2020 11,084 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,117 ha Lubalo fire, August 2019 12,572 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,593 ha Lubalo fire, August 2023 6,875 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,598 ha Lubalo fire, July 2019 6,723 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,231 ha Lubalo fire, August 2016 5,698 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,171 ha Lubalo fire, August 2021 5,578 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,485 ha Lubalo fire, August 2016 8,565 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,914 ha Lubalo fire, July 2020 5,790 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Lubalo where it started48,338 ha reached on 28 Jul3.3 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 9.3 hectares of built-up land and about 1,600 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jul | 29.8 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Jul | 30.0 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Jul | 29.7 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 31 Jul | 29.8 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Aug | 30.2 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Aug | 30.9 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Aug | 29.9 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Aug | 30.4 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 5 Aug | 31.0 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Aug | 31.4 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Aug | 31.0 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Aug | 30.7 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Aug | 30.6 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Aug | 31.7 °C | 18 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Aug | 30.8 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Aug | 31.9 °C | 20 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 13 Aug | 30.4 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 14 Aug | 30.9 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 43 |
| 15 Aug | 31.4 °C | 28 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Aug | 30.5 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Aug | 31.3 °C | 17 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Aug | 31.7 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Aug | 31.6 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 20 Aug | 30.6 °C | 18 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Aug | 30.7 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 22 Aug | 31.9 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Aug | 32.8 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 24 Aug | 32.5 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Aug | 32.0 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Aug | 31.0 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Aug | 34.5 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Aug | 32.0 °C | 28 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 29 Aug | 31.4 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Aug | 31.7 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 31 Aug | 32.0 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Sept | 32.6 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Sept | 34.4 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Sept | 32.4 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 38 |
| 4 Sept | 31.0 °C | 38 % | 39 km/h | 2.9 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 5 Sept after | 29.1 °C | 41 % | 26 km/h | 7.5 mm | Very low 5 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 19 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 124 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 77: 5.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,257Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,642 haLubalo7 August 2017 · 12 days · 27 km away
- 14,934 haLubalo4 August 2026 · 21 days · 28 km away
- 29,069 haLubalo25 July 2026 · 36 days · 33 km away
- 13,193 haLubalo5 August 2026 · 20 days · 33 km away
- 12,767 haLubalo15 July 2019 · 20 days · 35 km away
- 25,733 haLubalo22 July 2026 · 43 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lubalo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 July 2026 to 4 September 2026 (39 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 August 2026 to 3 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 48,021 hectares (480.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lubalo (48,338 ha, 3.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 August 2026 to 3 September 2026. 1,257 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.