How long did the Mussende fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 July 2026 to 1 September 2026 (47 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 July 2026 to 25 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 174,678 hectares (1,746.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mussende (139,755 ha, 12 %); Andulo (34,015 ha, 3.4 %); Luquembo (2,059 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 · 2026-07-17 → 2026-09-01

Mussende fire, 17 July 2026 Mussende, Andulo, Luquembo

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2026, 12:27 UTC

The fire started on 17 July 2026 in Mussende, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 47 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 174,678 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the largest fire in Cuanza Sul since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 3 in Angola in 2026, of 487.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mussende · 2025 Mussende · 2022 Andulo · 2022 Mussende · 2022

Burnt area: 174,678ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 47days; 17 Jul 2026 – 1 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 17 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 7,212; in a single hotspot: 248 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.6GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jul1 Sept

Play back 2 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

17 Jul 24 Jul 31 Jul 8 Aug 12 Aug 15 Aug 23 Aug 30 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

46km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21,162 ha in 2016, 14,975 ha in 2017, 12,322 ha in 2018, 29,979 ha in 2019, 22,837 ha in 2020, 24,256 ha in 2021, 33,464 ha in 2022, 46,384 ha in 2023, 34,620 ha in 2024, 55,432 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 140,211 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.1 times the area of London (1,747 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

Mussende where it started

139,755 ha reached on 17 Jul

12 %
Andulo

34,015 ha reached on 17 Jul

3.4 %
Luquembo

2,059 ha reached on 17 Jul

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 area28 ha

Residents≈ 3,500

Inside the perimeter there were about 28 hectares of built-up land and about 3,500 residents (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)
19 Jul	30.0 °C	17 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
20 Jul	29.3 °C	22 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
21 Jul	29.3 °C	27 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
22 Jul	31.2 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
23 Jul	32.1 °C	16 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
24 Jul	31.4 °C	16 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
25 Jul	30.8 °C	16 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
26 Jul	30.6 °C	17 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
27 Jul	30.8 °C	20 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
28 Jul	30.0 °C	16 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
29 Jul	29.6 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
30 Jul	29.9 °C	21 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
31 Jul	30.9 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
1 Aug	30.6 °C	18 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
2 Aug	30.5 °C	18 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
3 Aug	29.4 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
4 Aug	29.9 °C	24 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
5 Aug	30.4 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
6 Aug	30.5 °C	20 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
7 Aug	31.8 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Aug	31.5 °C	17 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
9 Aug	31.7 °C	17 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Aug	31.8 °C	15 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Aug	31.2 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
12 Aug	31.2 °C	14 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
13 Aug	31.6 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
14 Aug	31.5 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 42
15 Aug	31.6 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
16 Aug	31.0 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
17 Aug	31.1 °C	16 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
18 Aug	31.9 °C	15 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Aug	32.2 °C	12 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
20 Aug	32.0 °C	11 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
21 Aug	31.0 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
22 Aug	31.8 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
23 Aug	32.7 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
24 Aug	33.1 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
25 Aug	32.2 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
26 Aug	31.9 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
27 Aug	33.9 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 Aug	32.5 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
29 Aug	32.3 °C	20 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
30 Aug	30.7 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Aug	30.4 °C	34 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Sept	32.7 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
2 Sept after	32.9 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Sept after	31.1 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
4 Sept after	30.8 °C	36 %	35 km/h	0.6 mm	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 10 Jul 2026

After · 8 Sept 2026

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 12 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 190 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 121: 8.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak190 µg/m³

Days over the guideline52 days

PM10194 µg/m³

Optical depth1.31

WHO 15

1516171819202122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234

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 · 7,212Every 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 Mussende fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 July 2026 to 1 September 2026 (47 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 July 2026 to 25 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 174,678 hectares (1,746.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mussende (139,755 ha, 12 %); Andulo (34,015 ha, 3.4 %); Luquembo (2,059 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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 really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 12 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 July 2026 to 25 August 2026. 7,212 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