How long did the Milunga fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2025 and 11 September 2025: 13 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 10,765 hectares (107.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Milunga (6,147 ha, 1.0 %); Quimbele (4,686 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.

AO · Angola · 2025-08-30 → 2025-09-11

Milunga fire, August 2025 Milunga, Quimbele

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2025, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2025 in Milunga, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,765 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 26th largest in Uíge since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 50 in Angola in 2025, of 191.

Burnt area: 10,765ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 30 Aug 2025 – 11 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 30 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 255; in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 11 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug11 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

30311234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

31km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 17 Sept.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,144 ha in 2016, 1,473 ha in 2017, 463 ha in 2020, 2,359 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,922 ha that had burned before.

682 ha Quimbele fire, August 2024 5,486 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Milunga where it started

6,147 ha reached on 24 Aug

1.0 %
Quimbele

4,686 ha reached on 25 Aug

0.7 %

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)
24 Aug	29.9 °C	33 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
25 Aug	27.7 °C	44 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
26 Aug	31.2 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
27 Aug	32.0 °C	40 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
28 Aug	23.8 °C	65 %	23 km/h	1.6 mm	Low 8
29 Aug	31.4 °C	38 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
30 Aug	30.5 °C	46 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
31 Aug	26.6 °C	54 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
1 Sept	29.2 °C	46 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
2 Sept	31.2 °C	36 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
3 Sept	31.2 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
4 Sept	28.1 °C	46 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
5 Sept	30.2 °C	45 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
6 Sept	30.5 °C	42 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
7 Sept	29.8 °C	42 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
8 Sept	31.3 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.6 mm	High 24
9 Sept	29.8 °C	46 %	23 km/h	0.2 mm	High 25
10 Sept	31.1 °C	40 %	23 km/h	0.4 mm	High 26
11 Sept	31.2 °C	44 %	25 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 21
12 Sept after	30.7 °C	46 %	20 km/h	0.3 mm	High 22
13 Sept after	29.9 °C	47 %	25 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 21
14 Sept after	31.2 °C	41 %	23 km/h	0.6 mm	High 22
15 Sept after	32.5 °C	37 %	17 km/h	0.2 mm	High 26
16 Sept after	32.6 °C	36 %	22 km/h	0.6 mm	High 28
17 Sept after	31.5 °C	41 %	26 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 23 Aug 2025

After · 18 Sept 2025

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 3 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 162 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 110: 7.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak162 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM10163 µg/m³

Optical depth2.09

WHO 15

282930311234567891011121314

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 · 255Every 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 Milunga fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 August 2025 and 11 September 2025: 13 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 10,765 hectares (107.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Milunga (6,147 ha, 1.0 %); Quimbele (4,686 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned