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Mavinga fire, July 2026 Mavinga

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2026, 12:57 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2026 in Mavinga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,708 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 142th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 133 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
11,708ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
27 Jul 2026 – 9 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
27 Jul
2026
Heat detections
265
in a single hotspot: 106 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

272829303112567810

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
39km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,356 ha in 2016, 2,676 ha in 2017, 2,333 ha in 2018, 2,957 ha in 2019, 2,262 ha in 2020, 4,162 ha in 2022, 2,988 ha in 2023, 1,525 ha in 2024, 264 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,665 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mavinga where it started
    11,811 ha reached on 27 Jul
    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)
27 Jul 26.3 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul 26.9 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul 27.9 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul 28.4 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Jul 28.1 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Aug 27.4 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Aug 26.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Aug 27.0 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Aug 27.8 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Aug 28.9 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug 28.8 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Aug 28.3 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Aug 27.6 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Aug 28.1 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Aug after 28.8 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Aug after 24.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug after 26.8 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Aug after 28.1 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug after 27.5 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug after 26.6 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Aug after 26.4 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Aug after 27.5 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Aug after 29.5 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug after 30.5 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Aug after 30.7 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Aug after 30.0 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Aug after 29.8 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2026
After · 16 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 8 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak47 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM1050 µg/m³
Optical depth0.75
25262728293031123456789101112131415
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 · 265Every 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 Mavinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2026 and 9 August 2026: 14 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 11,708 hectares (117.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mavinga (11,811 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.