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Massango fire, 22 July 2026 Massango

Out · last detection 30 Jul 2026, 00:30 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2026 in Massango, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,184 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 116th largest in Malanje since 2016 (of 127 with a page). Number 456 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
5,184ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
22 Jul 2026 – 29 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Jul
2026
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 153 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
981MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul29 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2224252627282930

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
30km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 972 ha in 2016, 511 ha in 2017, 10 ha in 2018, 1,735 ha in 2020, 2,486 ha in 2021, 1,510 ha in 2022, 839 ha in 2023, 966 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,407 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Massango where it started
    5,220 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
16 Jul 31.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Jul 31.3 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jul 30.4 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Jul 31.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Jul 28.5 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jul 29.5 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Jul 33.4 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Jul 33.5 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Jul 33.6 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Jul 31.8 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jul 32.4 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jul 31.8 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul 31.8 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul 31.8 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jul after 29.3 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul after 32.0 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Aug after 31.3 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Aug after 32.0 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Aug after 29.4 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Aug after 30.9 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Aug after 32.0 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Aug after 33.0 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Aug after 31.8 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Aug after 32.3 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug after 31.2 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 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 175 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 106: 7.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak175 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10181 µg/m³
Optical depth1.41
2021222324252627282930311
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 · 115Every 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 Massango fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 July 2026 and 29 July 2026: 8 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 5,184 hectares (51.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Massango (5,220 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.