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AO · Angola · –

Luquembo fire, 16 July 2026 Luquembo, Cangandala, Mussende

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2026, 12:34 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2026 in Luquembo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,928 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 15th largest in Malanje since 2016 (of 127 with a page). Number 112 in Angola in 2026, of 487.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Luquembo · 2018Luquembo · 2019Cangandala · 2023Luquembo · 2026

Burnt area
12,928ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
16 Jul 2026 – 5 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
16 Jul
2026
Heat detections
356
in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
240MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul5 Aug
6 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

16 Jul 2026 · 734 MW · 72 17 Jul 2026 · 250 MW · 44 18 Jul 2026 · 70 MW · 8 19 Jul 2026 · 112 MW · 14 20 Jul 2026 · 785 MW · 42 21 Jul 2026 · 86 MW · 11 22 Jul 2026 · 60 MW · 9 23 Jul 2026 · 11 MW · 2 24 Jul 2026 · 501 MW · 43 25 Jul 2026 · 1,163 MW · 76 26 Jul 2026 · 325 MW · 23 27 Jul 2026 · 337 MW · 15 29 Jul 2026 · 18 MW · 2 30 Jul 2026 · 85 MW · 5 31 Jul 2026 · 356 MW · 23 1 Aug 2026 · 35 MW · 5 2 Aug 2026 · 14 MW · 2 3 Aug 2026 · 4 MW · 1 4 Aug 2026 · 17 MW · 3 5 Aug 2026 · 32 MW · 6 6 Aug 2026 · 49 MW · 4
16 Jul 21 Jul 25 Jul 1 Aug 6 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
48km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,266 ha in 2016, 2,384 ha in 2017, 2,112 ha in 2018, 2,939 ha in 2019, 2,422 ha in 2020, 1,963 ha in 2021, 3,850 ha in 2022, 3,298 ha in 2023, 1,295 ha in 2024, 2,656 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,764 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.2% of the area of London (129 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Luquembo where it started
    12,311 ha reached on 16 Jul
    1.2 %
  2. Cangandala
    598 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.1 %
  3. Mussende
    78 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.0 %

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 2025
Built-up area1.6 ha
Residents≈ 350

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.6 hectares of built-up land and about 350 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)
16 Jul 29.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jul 28.7 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Jul 28.5 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jul 30.4 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Jul 29.3 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Jul 29.4 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Jul 31.6 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Jul 32.7 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jul 32.3 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Jul 31.4 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Jul 31.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jul 30.9 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jul 30.3 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jul 30.3 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul 30.0 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul 31.1 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Aug 30.8 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Aug 31.1 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Aug 30.2 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Aug 29.8 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Aug 30.8 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Aug after 31.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug after 32.3 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug after 31.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug after 32.0 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Aug after 32.0 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Aug after 31.8 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug after 31.8 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug after 32.1 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Aug after 32.1 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
15 Aug after 31.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2026
After · 12 Aug 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 2 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 239 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 125: 8.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak239 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM10241 µg/m³
Optical depth1.52
16 Jul20 Jul24 Jul28 Jul1 Aug
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 · 356Every 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 Luquembo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 July 2026 to 5 August 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 July 2026 to 30 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,928 hectares (129.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Luquembo (12,311 ha, 1.2 %); Cangandala (598 ha, 0.1 %); Mussende (78 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 30 July 2026 → 5 August 2026.
  2. Start date: 18 July 2026 → 16 July 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 July 2026 to 30 July 2026. 356 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.