How long did the Saurimo fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 August 2026 to 29 August 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2026 to 26 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,554 hectares (115.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Saurimo (11,642 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 2026-08-13 → 2026-08-29

Saurimo fire, 13 August 2026 Saurimo

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2026, 12:04 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2026 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,554 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 136 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Burnt area: 11,554ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 13 Aug 2026 – 29 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 13 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 148; in a single hotspot: 166 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 3.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug29 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

131516192021222324252629

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

44km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.8 mm on 5 Sept.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,305 ha in 2016, 5,399 ha in 2017, 289 ha in 2018, 1,268 ha in 2019, 1,642 ha in 2020, 2,129 ha in 2021, 2,671 ha in 2022, 1,333 ha in 2023, 3,716 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,381 ha that had burned before.

2,380 ha Saurimo fire, June 2016 12,487 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Saurimo where it started

11,642 ha reached on 13 Aug

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)
13 Aug	30.3 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
14 Aug	30.3 °C	31 %	41 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 40
15 Aug	30.7 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
16 Aug	30.1 °C	24 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
17 Aug	30.5 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Aug	31.2 °C	14 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
19 Aug	31.5 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
20 Aug	31.0 °C	18 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
21 Aug	31.4 °C	21 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Aug	32.3 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
23 Aug	33.3 °C	21 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
24 Aug	33.1 °C	20 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
25 Aug	32.2 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
26 Aug	31.2 °C	32 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
27 Aug	34.3 °C	23 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
28 Aug	31.9 °C	28 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
29 Aug	31.5 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Aug after	32.1 °C	26 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
31 Aug after	32.7 °C	28 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
1 Sept after	32.4 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
2 Sept after	34.3 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Sept after	33.0 °C	30 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
4 Sept after	33.0 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Sept after	28.7 °C	47 %	30 km/h	13.8 mm	Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Aug 2026

After · 5 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 152 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 92: 6.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak152 µg/m³

Days over the guideline22 days

PM10157 µg/m³

Optical depth1.99

WHO 15

1112131415161718192021222324252627282930311

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 · 148Every 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 13 August 2026 to 29 August 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2026 to 26 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,554 hectares (115.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Saurimo (11,642 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 ↗

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.

Where it burned