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AO · Angola · →

Saurimo fire, 25 June 2026 Saurimo

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2026, 12:40 UTC

The fire started on 25 June 2026 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,390 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 91th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 238 in Angola in 2026, of 485.

Burnt area
7,390ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
25 Jun 2026 – 9 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Jun
2026
Heat detections
162
in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jun9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

25301235678910

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
41km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,844 ha in 2016, 2,761 ha in 2017, 2,618 ha in 2018, 3,497 ha in 2019, 5,064 ha in 2020, 4,159 ha in 2021, 4,784 ha in 2022, 2,220 ha in 2023, 3,672 ha in 2024, 1,501 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,291 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    7,426 ha reached on 23 Jun
    0.3 %

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)
25 Jun 30.6 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Jun 31.2 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Jun 31.4 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jun 30.6 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Jun 31.6 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Jun 32.0 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Jul 32.4 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Jul 32.4 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Jul 32.8 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Jul 32.3 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Jul 31.5 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jul 31.2 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Jul 30.7 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Jul 30.6 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Jul 31.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Jul after 31.6 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jul after 32.0 °C 18 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jul after 32.5 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jul after 32.8 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Jul after 32.7 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Jul after 31.4 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Jul after 30.0 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jul after 29.3 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jul after 30.4 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jul after 30.4 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jun 2026
After · 16 Jul 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 2 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 123 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 4.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak123 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM10127 µg/m³
Optical depth0.97
2324252627282930123456789101112
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 · 162Every 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 Saurimo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 June 2026 and 9 July 2026: 15 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 7,390 hectares (73.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Saurimo (7,426 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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

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.