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Quibala fire, 18 July 2026 Quibala

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2026, 12:34 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Quibala, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,317 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Cuanza Sul since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 124 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
12,317ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
18 Jul 2026 – 5 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2026
Heat detections
341
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul5 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

18192021222324252627282930311256

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
38km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,757 ha in 2016, 2,862 ha in 2017, 4,978 ha in 2018, 2,666 ha in 2019, 4,745 ha in 2020, 2,279 ha in 2021, 1,793 ha in 2022, 3,781 ha in 2023, 2,257 ha in 2024, 2,976 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,177 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Quibala where it started
    12,383 ha reached on 17 Jul
    1.2 %

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)
17 Jul 26.8 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul 23.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jul 26.0 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Jul 22.7 °C 51 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Jul 23.1 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Jul 25.9 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 Jul 27.4 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Jul 28.1 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Jul 28.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jul 26.5 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jul 26.1 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul 25.3 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Jul 25.5 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Jul 24.7 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul 26.6 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Aug 24.9 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Aug 24.7 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Aug 24.7 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Aug 23.8 °C 55 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
5 Aug 23.9 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Aug after 24.5 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Aug after 25.9 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Aug after 25.8 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Aug after 25.2 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Aug after 26.1 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Aug after 25.9 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Aug after 26.9 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Aug after 26.6 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Aug after 27.3 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Aug after 28.1 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug after 27.1 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Aug after 27.1 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Aug after 27.4 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug after 28.4 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug after 29.7 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Aug after 24.9 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Aug after 26.4 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2026
After · 12 Aug 2026

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 26 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 312 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 192: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak312 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM10315 µg/m³
Optical depth1.77
1617181920212223242526272829303112345678
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 · 341Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Quibala fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2026 and 5 August 2026: 19 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 12,317 hectares (123.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Quibala (12,383 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

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.