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Saurimo fire, 3 August 2026 Saurimo, Lubalo

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2026, 11:57 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2026 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 21 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 485.

Burnt area
17,061ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
3 Aug 2026 – 23 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
3 Aug
2026
Heat detections
526
in a single hotspot: 295 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

56789101112131415161718192021222324

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.

What happened to each town

  1. Saurimo where it started
    10,819 ha reached on 27 Jul
    0.5 %
  2. 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 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)
27 Jul 28.7 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Jul 28.5 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Jul 29.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul 29.0 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jul 28.9 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Aug 29.2 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Aug 30.1 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Aug 29.1 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug 29.6 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug 30.2 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug 30.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Aug 29.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Aug 29.6 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 29.7 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Aug 31.0 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Aug 29.7 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Aug 30.6 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
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 39
15 Aug 30.1 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Aug 29.3 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
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 44
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 43
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 43
23 Aug 32.3 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Aug after 32.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Aug after 31.5 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug after 31.1 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Aug after 33.8 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Aug after 31.9 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Aug after 31.2 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Aug after 31.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
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 39
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 · 27 Jul 2026
After · 30 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 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
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 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 3 August 2026 and 23 August 2026: 21 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 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 47, 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.