Skip to content
worldfires
AO · Angola · –

Xá-Muteba fire, 13 June 2026 Xá-Muteba, Cuango

Out · last detection 7 Jul 2026, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 13 June 2026 in Xá-Muteba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,918 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 129 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.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Xá-Muteba · 2026

Burnt area
11,918ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
13 Jun 2026 – 7 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
13 Jun
2026
Heat detections
513
in a single hotspot: 237 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
387MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jun7 Jul
7 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

13 Jun 2026 · 191 MW · 19 14 Jun 2026 · 213 MW · 24 15 Jun 2026 · 90 MW · 11 17 Jun 2026 · 82 MW · 10 18 Jun 2026 · 6 MW · 1 20 Jun 2026 · 264 MW · 16 21 Jun 2026 · 47 MW · 4 22 Jun 2026 · 160 MW · 13 23 Jun 2026 · 677 MW · 38 24 Jun 2026 · 203 MW · 27 25 Jun 2026 · 461 MW · 37 26 Jun 2026 · 875 MW · 42 27 Jun 2026 · 405 MW · 31 28 Jun 2026 · 64 MW · 12 29 Jun 2026 · 308 MW · 30 30 Jun 2026 · 862 MW · 46 1 Jul 2026 · 285 MW · 23 2 Jul 2026 · 47 MW · 4 3 Jul 2026 · 45 MW · 7 4 Jul 2026 · 2,620 MW · 51 5 Jul 2026 · 366 MW · 24 6 Jul 2026 · 266 MW · 28 7 Jul 2026 · 369 MW · 15
13 Jun 20 Jun 25 Jun 30 Jun 4 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

34°high
46km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,098 ha in 2016, 2,213 ha in 2017, 2,887 ha in 2018, 2,642 ha in 2019, 1,404 ha in 2020, 641 ha in 2021, 1,919 ha in 2023, 3,511 ha in 2024, 2,962 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,634 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.5% of the area of London (119 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
    11,803 ha reached on 13 Jun
    0.8 %
  2. 422 ha reached on 13 Jun
    0.1 %

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 area2.2 ha
Residents≈ 200

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.2 hectares of built-up land and about 200 residents (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)
13 Jun 31.1 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Jun 31.6 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jun 31.4 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jun 32.0 °C 30 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Jun 31.8 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Jun 29.8 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Jun 30.0 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Jun 32.6 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Jun 32.2 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
22 Jun 31.4 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Jun 31.9 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Jun 32.2 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jun 32.0 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Jun 31.6 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jun 32.3 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jun 31.0 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jun 32.4 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jun 32.4 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Jul 32.4 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Jul 32.4 °C 27 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Jul 32.3 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Jul 33.6 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Jul 33.1 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Jul 32.4 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jul 32.2 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Jul after 31.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Jul after 31.8 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jul after 32.0 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jul after 31.7 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jul after 32.8 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jul after 32.9 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Jul after 33.7 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jul after 32.8 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jul after 30.8 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jul after 30.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jun 2026
After · 14 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 154 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 88: 5.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak154 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM10158 µg/m³
Optical depth1.14
18 Jun22 Jun26 Jun30 Jun4 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 · 513Every 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 13 June 2026 to 7 July 2026 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 June 2026 to 1 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,918 hectares (119.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Xá-Muteba (11,803 ha, 0.8 %); Cuango (422 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

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: 1 July 2026 → 7 July 2026.
  2. Start date: 20 June 2026 → 13 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 June 2026 to 1 July 2026. 513 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.