Skip to content
worldfires
AO · Angola · →

Saurimo fire, 25 July 2026 Saurimo

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2026, 00:01 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2026 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,482 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 102 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area
13,482ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
25 Jul 2026 – 5 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
25 Jul
2026
Heat detections
271
in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul5 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2526272829303112356

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
37km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,548 ha in 2016, 5,645 ha in 2017, 6,996 ha in 2018, 3,020 ha in 2019, 6,375 ha in 2020, 4,319 ha in 2021, 3,064 ha in 2022, 5,511 ha in 2023, 2,401 ha in 2024, 2,492 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,919 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    13,560 ha reached on 25 Jul
    0.6 %

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 Jul 30.4 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul 29.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jul 29.8 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul 30.0 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jul 30.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jul 30.6 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jul 30.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug 30.2 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Aug 30.3 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug 30.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug 31.1 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug 31.6 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug after 31.6 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Aug after 30.9 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Aug after 30.8 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Aug after 31.4 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Aug after 32.3 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Aug after 31.1 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Aug after 30.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug after 30.9 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Aug after 31.3 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Aug after 31.1 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Aug after 30.7 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug after 30.8 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug after 31.4 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug after 31.8 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug after 30.8 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug after 30.7 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug after 32.1 °C 26 % 25 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 Jul 2026
After · 12 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 13 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 91 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak91 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM1094 µg/m³
Optical depth1.48
232425262728293031123456789101112131415
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 · 271Every 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 July 2026 and 5 August 2026: 12 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 13,482 hectares (134.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Saurimo (13,560 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.