How long did the Quibala fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 July 2026 to 31 August 2026 (40 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 July 2026 to 25 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,840 hectares (138.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Quibala (12,552 ha, 1.2 %); Mussende (1,373 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very 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 · 2026-07-23 → 2026-08-31

Quibala fire, 23 July 2026 Quibala, Mussende

Out · last detection 31 Aug 2026, 00:33 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2026 in Quibala, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,840 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Cuanza Sul since 2016 (of 79 with a page). Number 99 in Angola in 2026, of 487.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mussende · 2026 Quibala · 2025 Quibala · 2026 Quibala · 2026

Burnt area: 13,840ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 40days; 23 Jul 2026 – 31 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 23 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 530; in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 208MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul31 Aug

Play back 31 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 29 Jul 5 Aug 10 Aug 15 Aug 21 Aug 27 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

29°high

50km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,248 ha in 2016, 2,135 ha in 2017, 543 ha in 2018, 224 ha in 2019, 1,313 ha in 2020, 487 ha in 2021, 1,177 ha in 2023, 3,556 ha in 2024, 5,513 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,288 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.7% of the area of London (138 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

Quibala where it started

12,552 ha reached on 23 Jul

1.2 %
Mussende

1,373 ha reached on 24 Jul

0.1 %

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 area1.2 ha

Residents≈ 200

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.2 hectares of built-up land and about 200 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)
23 Jul	28.2 °C	18 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
24 Jul	27.4 °C	17 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
25 Jul	27.2 °C	16 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
26 Jul	27.0 °C	19 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
27 Jul	26.9 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
28 Jul	26.4 °C	18 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
29 Jul	25.8 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
30 Jul	25.7 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
31 Jul	26.7 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 Aug	26.4 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
2 Aug	26.5 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
3 Aug	25.4 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
4 Aug	26.2 °C	30 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
5 Aug	26.4 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Aug	26.2 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Aug	27.7 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
8 Aug	27.5 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Aug	27.8 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Aug	28.1 °C	17 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
11 Aug	27.6 °C	16 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Aug	27.1 °C	16 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
13 Aug	27.4 °C	24 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
14 Aug	27.4 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
15 Aug	27.7 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
16 Aug	27.3 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
17 Aug	27.5 °C	18 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
18 Aug	27.8 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Aug	28.3 °C	14 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
20 Aug	27.8 °C	13 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
21 Aug	26.7 °C	22 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
22 Aug	27.7 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
23 Aug	28.1 °C	23 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
24 Aug	28.4 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
25 Aug	27.7 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
26 Aug	27.7 °C	30 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Aug	29.4 °C	25 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
28 Aug	28.3 °C	26 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
29 Aug	28.3 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Aug	26.9 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
31 Aug	25.8 °C	42 %	26 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
1 Sept after	28.8 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
2 Sept after	29.1 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Sept after	26.4 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
4 Sept after	26.3 °C	41 %	34 km/h	1.9 mm	Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Jul 2026

After · 7 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 7 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 235 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 154: 10 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak235 µg/m³

Days over the guideline45 days

PM10239 µg/m³

Optical depth1.77

WHO 15

212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123

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 · 530Every 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 Quibala fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 July 2026 to 31 August 2026 (40 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 July 2026 to 25 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,840 hectares (138.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Quibala (12,552 ha, 1.2 %); Mussende (1,373 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very 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 ↗

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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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 30 July 2026 to 25 August 2026. 530 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