How long did the Saurimo fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 July 2026 to 30 August 2026 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2026 to 23 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 17,061 hectares (170.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Saurimo (10,819 ha, 0.5 %); Lubalo (6,376 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · 2026-07-27 → 2026-08-30

Saurimo fire, 27 July 2026 Saurimo, Lubalo

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2026, 11:47 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2026 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,061 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 72 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Saurimo · 2017 Cacolo · 2026 Saurimo · 2026 Saurimo · 2026

Burnt area: 17,061ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 35days; 27 Jul 2026 – 30 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 27 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 526; in a single hotspot: 295 MW
Danger at start: 36; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 332MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul30 Aug

Play back 30 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

27 Jul 2 Aug 6 Aug 9 Aug 14 Aug 19 Aug 24 Aug 29 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

34°high

47km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.6 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,500 ha in 2016, 3,507 ha in 2017, 2,567 ha in 2018, 2,811 ha in 2019, 5,728 ha in 2020, 60 ha in 2021, 3,032 ha in 2022, 2,849 ha in 2023, 2,715 ha in 2024, 3,044 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,034 ha that had burned before.

256 ha Saurimo fire, August 2017 6,553 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 11% of the area of London (171 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

Saurimo where it started

10,819 ha reached on 27 Jul

0.5 %
Lubalo

6,376 ha reached on 29 Jul

0.4 %

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.

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)
27 Jul	28.7 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 Jul	28.5 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 Jul	29.0 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Jul	29.0 °C	23 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
31 Jul	28.9 °C	26 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Aug	29.2 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
2 Aug	30.1 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Aug	29.1 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
4 Aug	29.6 °C	22 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
5 Aug	30.2 °C	18 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Aug	30.3 °C	17 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
7 Aug	29.9 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Aug	29.6 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
9 Aug	29.7 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Aug	31.0 °C	18 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
11 Aug	29.7 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Aug	30.6 °C	23 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
13 Aug	29.6 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 Aug	29.4 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 38
15 Aug	30.1 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
16 Aug	29.3 °C	26 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
17 Aug	29.8 °C	20 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
18 Aug	30.3 °C	16 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Aug	30.5 °C	18 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
20 Aug	30.0 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
21 Aug	30.5 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
22 Aug	31.3 °C	25 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
23 Aug	32.3 °C	22 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
24 Aug	32.1 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
25 Aug	31.5 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
26 Aug	31.1 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
27 Aug	33.8 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Aug	31.9 °C	28 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Aug	31.2 °C	27 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
30 Aug	31.5 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
31 Aug after	31.4 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Sept after	32.2 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
2 Sept after	33.5 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
3 Sept after	31.8 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
4 Sept after	30.7 °C	39 %	41 km/h	4.6 mm	Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Jul 2026

After · 6 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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 166 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 86: 5.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak166 µg/m³

Days over the guideline40 days

PM10173 µg/m³

Optical depth1.75

WHO 15

252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112

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 · 526Every 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 Saurimo fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 July 2026 to 30 August 2026 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2026 to 23 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 17,061 hectares (170.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Saurimo (10,819 ha, 0.5 %); Lubalo (6,376 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 23 August 2026 → 30 August 2026.
26 October 2026 Start date: 3 August 2026 → 27 July 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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 August 2026 to 23 August 2026. 526 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.

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