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Xá-Muteba fire, 14 June 2026 Xá-Muteba

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2026, 12:40 UTC

The fire started on 14 June 2026 in Xá-Muteba, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,776 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 66th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 132 in Angola in 2026, of 487.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Xá-Muteba · 2026Xá-Muteba · 2026Xá-Muteba · 2026Xá-Muteba · 2026

Burnt area
11,776ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
14 Jun 2026 – 10 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Jun
2026
Heat detections
292
in a single hotspot: 268 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
277MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jun10 Jul
10 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

14 Jun 2026 · 40 MW · 7 15 Jun 2026 · 182 MW · 9 16 Jun 2026 · 4 MW · 1 17 Jun 2026 · 13 MW · 1 18 Jun 2026 · 100 MW · 10 21 Jun 2026 · 217 MW · 4 22 Jun 2026 · 12 MW · 2 23 Jun 2026 · 405 MW · 16 24 Jun 2026 · 29 MW · 5 25 Jun 2026 · 683 MW · 17 26 Jun 2026 · 4 MW · 1 27 Jun 2026 · 184 MW · 9 28 Jun 2026 · 111 MW · 7 29 Jun 2026 · 283 MW · 19 30 Jun 2026 · 928 MW · 32 1 Jul 2026 · 337 MW · 23 2 Jul 2026 · 84 MW · 8 3 Jul 2026 · 151 MW · 16 4 Jul 2026 · 168 MW · 10 5 Jul 2026 · 1,063 MW · 30 6 Jul 2026 · 1,495 MW · 30 7 Jul 2026 · 164 MW · 15 8 Jul 2026 · 14 MW · 4 9 Jul 2026 · 187 MW · 11 10 Jul 2026 · 74 MW · 5
14 Jun 18 Jun 24 Jun 28 Jun 2 Jul 6 Jul 10 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
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

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,963 ha in 2016, 3,524 ha in 2017, 2,072 ha in 2018, 1,584 ha in 2019, 1,504 ha in 2020, 2,257 ha in 2021, 2,351 ha in 2022, 2,682 ha in 2023, 4,075 ha in 2024, 2,521 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,952 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.4% of the area of London (118 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
    11,858 ha reached on 14 Jun
    0.8 %

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)
14 Jun 31.1 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jun 31.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jun 31.8 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jun 31.6 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Jun 29.7 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Jun 29.7 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Jun 32.0 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Jun 31.8 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
22 Jun 31.1 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Jun 31.5 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jun 31.6 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jun 31.3 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jun 31.2 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jun 31.6 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jun 30.6 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Jun 31.8 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jun 31.8 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Jul 31.9 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Jul 32.2 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Jul 31.7 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Jul 32.9 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Jul 32.4 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Jul 31.7 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jul 31.4 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Jul 30.6 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Jul 31.3 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jul 31.4 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jul after 31.3 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jul after 32.4 °C 18 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Jul after 32.4 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Jul after 33.3 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Jul after 32.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jul after 30.4 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jul after 29.6 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jul after 30.2 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jul after 31.7 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul after 29.9 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jun 2026
After · 17 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 130 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 82: 5.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak130 µg/m³
Days over the guideline22 days
PM10132 µg/m³
Optical depth0.99
19202122232425262728293012345678910
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 · 292Every 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 14 June 2026 to 10 July 2026 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 June 2026 to 7 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,776 hectares (117.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Xá-Muteba (11,858 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 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

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: 7 July 2026 → 10 July 2026.
  2. Start date: 21 June 2026 → 14 June 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 21 June 2026 to 7 July 2026. 292 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.