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Marimba fire, 18 July 2026 Marimba, Cunda-dia-Baze

Out · last detection 30 Jul 2026, 13:06 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Marimba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,830 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 10th largest in Malanje since 2016 (of 127 with a page). Number 83 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Marimba · 2023Marimba · 2022Cunda-dia-Baze · 2020Cunda-dia-Baze · 2024

Burnt area
15,830ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
18 Jul 2026 – 29 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2026
Heat detections
337
in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
241MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

30 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul29 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 2026 · 5 MW · 5 19 Jul 2026 · 21 MW · 6 20 Jul 2026 · 18 MW · 5 22 Jul 2026 · 200 MW · 20 23 Jul 2026 · 37 MW · 10 24 Jul 2026 · 1,399 MW · 94 25 Jul 2026 · 773 MW · 113 26 Jul 2026 · 125 MW · 34 27 Jul 2026 · 250 MW · 24 28 Jul 2026 · 36 MW · 4 29 Jul 2026 · 21 MW · 2 30 Jul 2026 · 4 MW · 1
18 Jul 20 Jul 23 Jul 24 Jul 25 Jul 27 Jul 29 Jul

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
26km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,576 ha in 2016, 5,477 ha in 2017, 4,014 ha in 2018, 8,481 ha in 2019, 2,216 ha in 2020, 3,643 ha in 2021, 4,936 ha in 2022, 5,760 ha in 2023, 3,161 ha in 2024, 5,595 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,471 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 10% of the area of London (158 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. Marimba where it started
    10,942 ha reached on 18 Jul
    1.8 %
  2. Cunda-dia-Baze
    4,998 ha reached on 18 Jul
    1.5 %

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 30.9 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jul 32.1 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Jul 29.3 °C 34 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jul 30.4 °C 41 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Jul 33.9 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Jul 33.5 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Jul 34.5 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jul 32.2 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul 32.8 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Jul 32.2 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jul 32.1 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Jul 31.9 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jul after 29.8 °C 35 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul after 32.3 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Aug after 31.5 °C 34 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug after 32.8 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Aug after 30.5 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Aug after 31.4 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Aug after 32.3 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Aug after 33.4 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug after 32.2 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug after 32.0 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Aug after 31.3 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Aug after 31.5 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Aug after 31.6 °C 36 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug after 33.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug after 33.0 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug after 33.7 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
15 Aug after 33.4 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2026
After · 5 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 26 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 236 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 134: 8.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak236 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM10242 µg/m³
Optical depth1.45
1617181920212223242526272829303112345678
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 · 337Every 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 Marimba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2026 and 29 July 2026: 12 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 15,830 hectares (158.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Marimba (10,942 ha, 1.8 %); Cunda-dia-Baze (4,998 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 337 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.

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.