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AO · Angola · –

Xá-Muteba fire, 22 June 2026 Xá-Muteba

Out · last detection 19 Jul 2026, 11:32 UTC

The fire started on 22 June 2026 in Xá-Muteba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,042 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 164 in Angola in 2026, of 487.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
10,042ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
22 Jun 2026 – 19 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Jun
2026
Heat detections
212
in a single hotspot: 260 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
195MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jun19 Jul
19 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

22 Jun 2026 · 93 MW · 6 24 Jun 2026 · 5 MW · 1 25 Jun 2026 · 22 MW · 8 26 Jun 2026 · 30 MW · 4 27 Jun 2026 · 26 MW · 3 28 Jun 2026 · 11 MW · 2 29 Jun 2026 · 390 MW · 11 30 Jun 2026 · 102 MW · 18 1 Jul 2026 · 28 MW · 3 2 Jul 2026 · 43 MW · 7 3 Jul 2026 · 8 MW · 2 4 Jul 2026 · 180 MW · 14 5 Jul 2026 · 166 MW · 23 7 Jul 2026 · 2,400 MW · 35 8 Jul 2026 · 30 MW · 6 9 Jul 2026 · 127 MW · 11 10 Jul 2026 · 301 MW · 17 11 Jul 2026 · 314 MW · 8 12 Jul 2026 · 435 MW · 15 13 Jul 2026 · 11 MW · 2 14 Jul 2026 · 38 MW · 4 15 Jul 2026 · 34 MW · 4 17 Jul 2026 · 12 MW · 1 18 Jul 2026 · 31 MW · 3 19 Jul 2026 · 28 MW · 4
22 Jun 28 Jun 7 Jul 14 Jul

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

33°high
42km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,383 ha in 2016, 2,497 ha in 2017, 534 ha in 2018, 1,443 ha in 2019, 4,124 ha in 2020, 887 ha in 2021, 1,947 ha in 2022, 1,584 ha in 2023, 820 ha in 2024, 922 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,387 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.3% of the area of London (100 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

  1. Xá-Muteba where it started
    10,113 ha reached on 22 Jun
    0.7 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
22 Jun 31.1 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jun 31.3 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jun 31.6 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jun 31.1 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jun 31.3 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jun 31.4 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jun 30.4 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jun 31.6 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Jun 31.7 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jul 31.9 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Jul 32.4 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Jul 31.8 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Jul 32.5 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Jul 32.2 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Jul 31.5 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Jul 31.0 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Jul 30.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jul 31.1 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Jul 31.1 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Jul 31.3 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jul 32.3 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Jul 32.3 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Jul 32.8 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Jul 32.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Jul 30.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Jul 29.3 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Jul 30.1 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Jul 31.6 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Jul after 30.2 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Jul after 31.0 °C 30 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Jul after 33.3 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jul after 34.0 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
24 Jul after 33.8 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
25 Jul after 32.5 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Jul after 32.2 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jul after 32.1 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jul after 31.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jul after 31.8 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jun 2026
After · 26 Jul 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 27 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 137 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak137 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM10141 µg/m³
Optical depth0.87
24 Jun29 Jun4 Jul9 Jul14 Jul
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 · 212Every 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 Xá-Muteba fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 June 2026 to 19 July 2026 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 June 2026 to 13 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,042 hectares (100.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Xá-Muteba (10,113 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 13 July 2026 → 19 July 2026.
  2. Start date: 26 June 2026 → 22 June 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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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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 26 June 2026 to 13 July 2026. 212 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.