Saurimo fire, 11 August 2026 Saurimo
The fire started on 11 August 2026 in Saurimo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,764 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 167th largest in Lunda Sul since 2016 (of 240 with a page). Number 375 in Angola in 2026, of 486.
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Suggestions: Saurimo · 2026Saurimo · 2022
- Burnt area
- 5,764ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 11 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 11 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 112
- in a single hotspot: 37 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 51MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 4 Sept.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,574 ha in 2016, 1,172 ha in 2017, 106 ha in 2018, 707 ha in 2019, 63 ha in 2021, 255 ha in 2022, 221 ha in 2023, 1,672 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,073 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
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 started5,817 ha reached on 11 Aug0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Aug | 28.5 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Aug | 28.8 °C | 26 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 13 Aug | 28.8 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 14 Aug | 27.7 °C | 38 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Aug | 28.6 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Aug | 27.8 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Aug | 28.2 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Aug | 28.8 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Aug | 28.9 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Aug | 28.6 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Aug | 29.2 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Aug | 30.1 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 23 Aug | 31.0 °C | 24 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 24 Aug | 30.7 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Aug | 30.5 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Aug | 30.2 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Aug | 32.2 °C | 24 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Aug | 31.2 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 29 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 30 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 31 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 1.9 mm | Moderate 16 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 99 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 59: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 112Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Saurimo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2026 to 28 August 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 August 2026 to 28 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,764 hectares (57.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Saurimo (5,817 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 46 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 August 2026 to 28 August 2026. 112 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.
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.