How long did the Nancova fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2026 to 14 August 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2026 to 13 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,749 hectares (77.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nancova (4,238 ha, 0.4 %); Cuangar (3,561 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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 · 2026-07-29 → 2026-08-14

Nancova fire, July 2026 Nancova, Cuangar

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2026, 11:45 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2026 in Nancova, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,749 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 310th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). Number 228 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nancova · 2022 Nancova · 2026 Cuangar · 2026 Nancova · 2025

Burnt area: 7,749ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 29 Jul 2026 – 14 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 29 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 133; in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 150MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul14 Aug

Play back 14 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

29 Jul 5 Aug 7 Aug 9 Aug 11 Aug 13 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

31°high

42km/h · peak gust

5%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 826 ha in 2016, 1,458 ha in 2017, 713 ha in 2018, 393 ha in 2020, 1,797 ha in 2021, 234 ha in 2022, 1,160 ha in 2024, 23 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,672 ha that had burned before.

234 ha Nancova fire, September 2022 12,012 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.9% of the area of London (77 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

Nancova where it started

4,238 ha reached on 29 Jul

0.4 %
Cuangar

3,561 ha reached on 1 Aug

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.

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	Danger (FWI)
29 Jul	29.1 °C	10 %	35 km/h	Very high 48
30 Jul	29.8 °C	5 %	35 km/h	Extreme 54
31 Jul	29.1 °C	9 %	40 km/h	Extreme 59
1 Aug	28.8 °C	13 %	40 km/h	Extreme 57
2 Aug	28.3 °C	12 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
3 Aug	28.4 °C	6 %	42 km/h	Extreme 59
4 Aug	29.3 °C	13 %	37 km/h	Extreme 54
5 Aug	30.3 °C	13 %	36 km/h	Extreme 53
6 Aug	30.8 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Extreme 56
7 Aug	29.7 °C	10 %	38 km/h	Extreme 56
8 Aug	29.2 °C	10 %	37 km/h	Extreme 56
9 Aug	30.1 °C	7 %	29 km/h	Extreme 50
10 Aug	29.5 °C	12 %	34 km/h	Extreme 57
11 Aug	26.1 °C	12 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
12 Aug	28.9 °C	7 %	40 km/h	Extreme 56
13 Aug	30.0 °C	16 %	41 km/h	Extreme 55
14 Aug	29.4 °C	19 %	41 km/h	Extreme 53
15 Aug after	28.4 °C	24 %	42 km/h	Very high 49
16 Aug after	28.0 °C	17 %	44 km/h	Very high 50
17 Aug after	29.2 °C	12 %	40 km/h	Extreme 51
18 Aug after	30.9 °C	10 %	39 km/h	Extreme 54
19 Aug after	32.2 °C	6 %	44 km/h	Extreme 62
20 Aug after	32.7 °C	9 %	46 km/h	Extreme 66
21 Aug after	31.6 °C	11 %	48 km/h	Extreme 68
22 Aug after	31.6 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Extreme 61
23 Aug after	32.7 °C	14 %	49 km/h	Extreme 67
24 Aug after	33.2 °C	11 %	47 km/h	Extreme 67

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Jul 2026

After · 21 Aug 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 8 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 55 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak55 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM1057 µg/m³

Optical depth0.45

WHO 15

27282930311234567891011121314151617

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 · 133Every 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 Nancova fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2026 to 14 August 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2026 to 13 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,749 hectares (77.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nancova (4,238 ha, 0.4 %); Cuangar (3,561 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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: 13 August 2026 → 14 August 2026.
26 October 2026 Start date: 3 August 2026 → 29 July 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 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 3 August 2026 to 13 August 2026. 133 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.

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