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Saurimo fire, 28 June 2026 Saurimo

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2026, 12:59 UTC

The fire started on 28 June 2026 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,928 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 106th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 276 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
6,928ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
28 Jun 2026 – 11 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Jun
2026
Heat detections
98
in a single hotspot: 231 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jun11 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2829301236789

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
41km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 283 ha in 2016, 1,961 ha in 2017, 1,680 ha in 2019, 865 ha in 2020, 1,236 ha in 2022, 551 ha in 2023, 825 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,990 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    6,969 ha reached on 28 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)
28 Jun 29.3 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Jun 30.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jun 30.6 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Jul 30.9 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Jul 31.5 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Jul 31.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Jul 30.6 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Jul 29.8 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Jul 29.5 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Jul 28.9 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Jul 29.0 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Jul 29.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jul 30.1 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Jul 31.0 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Jul after 31.1 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Jul after 31.4 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Jul after 31.4 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Jul after 30.5 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Jul after 28.4 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jul after 27.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jul after 28.8 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jul after 29.1 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jul after 29.6 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Jul after 30.8 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jun 2026
After · 18 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 132 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak132 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM10135 µg/m³
Optical depth1.00
26272829301234567891011121314
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 · 98Every 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 28 June 2026 and 11 July 2026: 14 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 6,928 hectares (69.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Saurimo (6,969 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.