How long did the Menongue fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 September 2024 to 29 September 2024 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 September 2024 to 22 September 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,618 hectares (56.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Menongue (5,662 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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.

AO · Angola · 2024-09-10 → 2024-09-29

Menongue fire, 10 September 2024 Menongue

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2024, 11:56 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2024 in Menongue, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,618 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 541th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 660 with a page). Number 99 in Angola in 2024, of 135.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Menongue · 2016 Menongue · 2024 Menongue · 2019 Menongue · 2023

Burnt area: 5,618ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 20days; 10 Sept 2024 – 29 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 10 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 218; in a single hotspot: 196 MW
Danger at start: 53; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 461MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept29 Sept

Play back 29 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

13 Sept 18 Sept 20 Sept 22 Sept 28 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

37°high

52km/h · peak gust

6%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,138 ha in 2016, 54 ha in 2019, 2,469 ha in 2020, 1,173 ha in 2021, 647 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,859 ha that had burned before.

4,138 ha Menongue fire, September 2016 6,666 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.5% of the area of London (56 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

Menongue where it started

5,662 ha reached on 13 Sept

0.2 %

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 area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
10 Sept	35.5 °C	8 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
11 Sept	35.3 °C	11 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
12 Sept	35.3 °C	13 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
13 Sept	35.1 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
14 Sept	34.6 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
15 Sept	36.8 °C	11 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
16 Sept	36.7 °C	11 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Sept	36.0 °C	8 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
18 Sept	35.9 °C	6 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
19 Sept	35.7 °C	11 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
20 Sept	36.0 °C	8 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
21 Sept	35.7 °C	9 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
22 Sept	33.3 °C	21 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
23 Sept	32.9 °C	21 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 49
24 Sept	34.3 °C	17 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
25 Sept	35.1 °C	12 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
26 Sept	35.8 °C	11 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
27 Sept	36.7 °C	7 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
28 Sept	36.9 °C	9 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
29 Sept	35.4 °C	11 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
30 Sept after	33.6 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
1 Oct after	34.1 °C	12 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
2 Oct after	35.2 °C	6 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
3 Oct after	33.3 °C	18 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
4 Oct after	32.4 °C	22 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
5 Oct after	32.5 °C	18 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
6 Oct after	33.2 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
7 Oct after	34.8 °C	11 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
8 Oct after	36.3 °C	8 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
9 Oct after	36.7 °C	8 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Sept 2024

After · 6 Oct 2024

Before After

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 18 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak49 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1070 µg/m³

Optical depth1.18

WHO 15

1516171819202122232425

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 · 218Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Menongue fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 September 2024 to 29 September 2024 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 September 2024 to 22 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,618 hectares (56.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Menongue (5,662 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 22 September 2024 → 29 September 2024.
26 October 2026 Start date: 17 September 2024 → 10 September 2024.

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 September 2024 to 22 September 2024. 218 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.

Where it burned