Nancova fire, August 2025 Nancova, Mavinga
The fire started on 22 August 2025 in Nancova, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 72,306 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 660 with a page). Number 3 in Angola in 2025, of 191.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 72,306ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 30days
- 22 Aug 2025 – 20 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 22 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 2,023
- in a single hotspot: 147 MW
- Danger at start
- 58
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 825MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 22,019 ha in 2016, 8,667 ha in 2017, 26,502 ha in 2018, 14,856 ha in 2019, 5,910 ha in 2020, 23,448 ha in 2021, 4,311 ha in 2022, 21,445 ha in 2023, 837 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 62,734 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Nancova where it started38,726 ha reached on 22 Aug3.7 %
-
34,004 ha reached on 22 Aug0.8 %
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 2025Inside 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Aug | 32.3 °C | 5 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 23 Aug | 33.3 °C | 5 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 24 Aug | 33.5 °C | 5 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 25 Aug | 33.0 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 26 Aug | 31.6 °C | 24 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 27 Aug | 31.0 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 Aug | 32.9 °C | 11 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 29 Aug | 34.0 °C | 9 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Aug | 33.9 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 31 Aug | 33.2 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 1 Sept | 33.4 °C | 8 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 2 Sept | 33.6 °C | 6 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 3 Sept | 31.5 °C | 9 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 4 Sept | 32.2 °C | 6 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 5 Sept | 33.1 °C | 6 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 6 Sept | 34.1 °C | 7 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 7 Sept | 34.3 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 8 Sept | 34.7 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 9 Sept | 34.8 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 10 Sept | 35.3 °C | 8 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 11 Sept | 34.6 °C | 9 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 12 Sept | 34.8 °C | 10 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 13 Sept | 35.2 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 14 Sept | 35.9 °C | 10 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 15 Sept | 35.8 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 16 Sept | 37.1 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Sept | 36.8 °C | 6 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 18 Sept | 37.3 °C | 7 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 19 Sept | 36.8 °C | 9 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 79 |
| 20 Sept | 36.0 °C | 9 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 21 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 19 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 22 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Sept after | 33.9 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 24 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 25 Sept after | 37.3 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 26 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 27 Sept after | 35.7 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 28 Sept after | 33.9 °C | 6 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 29 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 30 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 7 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 123 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 67: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 2,023Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,871 haNancovaAugust 2018 · 10 days · 7 km away
- 15,742 haNancova24 August 2021 · 15 days · 14 km away
- 14,956 haNancova1 September 2018 · 9 days · 20 km away
- 13,018 haNancova23 August 2023 · 28 days · 22 km away
- 9,636 haMavinga27 July 2019 · 14 days · 23 km away
- 10,449 haMavinga9 September 2019 · 7 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nancova fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 August 2025 to 20 September 2025 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 August 2025 to 17 September 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 72,306 hectares (723.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nancova (38,726 ha, 3.7 %); Mavinga (34,004 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 79, class Very 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 17 September 2025 → 20 September 2025.
- Start date: 29 August 2025 → 22 August 2025.
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.
Report an error
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 29 August 2025 to 17 September 2025. 2,023 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.
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.