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Luena fire, 8 September 2026 Luena

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2026, 11:47 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2026 in Luena, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,894 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Moxico since 2016 (of 108 with a page). Number 113 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
12,894ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
8 Sept 2026 – 1 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Sept
2026
Heat detections
491
in a single hotspot: 165 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Average daily power
427MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

1 Oct 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept1 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

8 Sept 2026 · 23 MW · 5 9 Sept 2026 · 24 MW · 3 10 Sept 2026 · 137 MW · 5 11 Sept 2026 · 83 MW · 10 12 Sept 2026 · 38 MW · 8 13 Sept 2026 · 425 MW · 12 14 Sept 2026 · 1,156 MW · 48 16 Sept 2026 · 970 MW · 50 17 Sept 2026 · 863 MW · 71 18 Sept 2026 · 1,841 MW · 70 19 Sept 2026 · 625 MW · 40 21 Sept 2026 · 13 MW · 2 23 Sept 2026 · 9 MW · 2 24 Sept 2026 · 200 MW · 25 25 Sept 2026 · 870 MW · 58 26 Sept 2026 · 130 MW · 8 27 Sept 2026 · 234 MW · 25 28 Sept 2026 · 271 MW · 10 30 Sept 2026 · 604 MW · 36 1 Oct 2026 · 18 MW · 3
8 Sept 11 Sept 14 Sept 18 Sept 23 Sept 26 Sept 30 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
44km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 6 Oct.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 612 ha in 2017, 1,047 ha in 2018, 440 ha in 2019, 2,104 ha in 2020, 819 ha in 2021, 3,758 ha in 2022, 3,820 ha in 2023, 3,982 ha in 2024, 12,254 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,652 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luena where it started
    12,963 ha reached on 8 Sept
    0.3 %

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)
8 Sept 30.2 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
9 Sept 29.6 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Sept 29.8 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Sept 31.5 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Sept 32.9 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept 31.4 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
14 Sept 32.4 °C 32 % 24 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 17
15 Sept 28.2 °C 41 % 24 km/h 2.8 mm Low 8
16 Sept 32.4 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Sept 32.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Sept 30.6 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
19 Sept 31.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
20 Sept 25.9 °C 53 % 27 km/h 6.0 mm Very low 3
21 Sept 29.4 °C 40 % 23 km/h 3.0 mm Very low 4
22 Sept 25.0 °C 58 % 24 km/h 12.7 mm Very low 0
23 Sept 29.7 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm Low 6
24 Sept 29.6 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
25 Sept 32.2 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Sept 33.6 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Sept 32.7 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
28 Sept 29.6 °C 38 % 40 km/h 3.3 mm Low 6
29 Sept 32.2 °C 30 % 27 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 13
30 Sept 30.6 °C 35 % 32 km/h 1.7 mm Low 11
1 Oct 30.5 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
2 Oct after 31.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
3 Oct after 31.0 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Oct after 33.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Oct after 31.5 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Oct after 30.8 °C 33 % 31 km/h 5.8 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2026
After · 8 Oct 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 15 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 206 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 90: 6.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak206 µg/m³
Days over the guideline26 days
PM10215 µg/m³
Optical depth1.28
67891011121314151617181920212223242526272829301234
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 · 491Every 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

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Luena fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 September 2026 to 1 October 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 September 2026 to 24 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,894 hectares (128.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luena (12,963 ha, 0.3 %).
Is the Luena fire still active?
No fire detections since 1 Oct 2026, 11:47 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.