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Quirima fire, 5 August 2026 Quirima

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2026, 12:53 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2026 in Quirima, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,068 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 121th largest in Malanje since 2016 (of 127 with a page). Number 470 in Angola in 2026, of 485.

Burnt area
5,068ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
5 Aug 2026 – 20 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Aug
2026
Heat detections
180
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
834MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

5671011121314151617192021

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

The weather it burned in

34°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: 2.2 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 421 ha in 2018, 74 ha in 2019, 665 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Quirima where it started
    5,094 ha reached on 29 Jul
    0.5 %

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)
29 Jul 30.1 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Jul 30.1 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul 30.9 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Aug 31.2 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug 31.3 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Aug 30.3 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Aug 30.2 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Aug 31.3 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug 31.6 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug 31.7 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Aug 31.6 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Aug 31.6 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Aug 31.7 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 31.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug 32.0 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Aug 31.1 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug 30.9 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 40
15 Aug 31.4 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug 30.7 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug 31.1 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Aug 32.1 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug 31.9 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Aug 31.5 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Aug after 31.7 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Aug after 32.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Aug after 33.9 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Aug after 33.5 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Aug after 33.4 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Aug after 33.0 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug after 35.0 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Aug after 32.6 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Aug after 31.9 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug after 32.7 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Aug after 31.6 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Sept after 33.4 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Sept after 34.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Sept after 31.9 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept after 31.5 °C 38 % 39 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2026
After · 27 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 29 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 204 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 98: 6.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak204 µg/m³
Days over the guideline33 days
PM10209 µg/m³
Optical depth1.92
27282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829
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 · 180Every 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 Quirima fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2026 and 20 August 2026: 16 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 5,068 hectares (50.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Quirima (5,094 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 50 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

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.