Skip to content
worldfires
en
AO · Angola · →

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 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,217 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 75th largest in Lunda Norte since 2016 (of 411 with a page). Number 144 in Angola in 2026, of 487.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Xá-Muteba · 2026Capenda-Camulemba · 2026Capenda-Camulemba · 2016Capenda-Camulemba · 2017

Burnt area
11,217ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
14 Jun 2026 – 11 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
14 Jun
2026
Heat detections
306
in a single hotspot: 307 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
243MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jun11 Jul
10 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

14 Jun 2026 · 5 MW · 2 15 Jun 2026 · 16 MW · 3 17 Jun 2026 · 54 MW · 7 18 Jun 2026 · 278 MW · 19 19 Jun 2026 · 3 MW · 1 21 Jun 2026 · 24 MW · 2 22 Jun 2026 · 118 MW · 8 23 Jun 2026 · 404 MW · 20 24 Jun 2026 · 63 MW · 9 25 Jun 2026 · 547 MW · 25 26 Jun 2026 · 1,095 MW · 20 27 Jun 2026 · 180 MW · 9 28 Jun 2026 · 187 MW · 17 29 Jun 2026 · 312 MW · 15 30 Jun 2026 · 123 MW · 11 1 Jul 2026 · 20 MW · 4 2 Jul 2026 · 24 MW · 7 3 Jul 2026 · 432 MW · 25 4 Jul 2026 · 138 MW · 16 5 Jul 2026 · 204 MW · 14 6 Jul 2026 · 27 MW · 2 7 Jul 2026 · 374 MW · 11 8 Jul 2026 · 309 MW · 13 9 Jul 2026 · 1,070 MW · 42 10 Jul 2026 · 69 MW · 4
14 Jun 19 Jun 24 Jun 26 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

32°high
42km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,699 ha in 2016, 2,520 ha in 2017, 1,654 ha in 2018, 949 ha in 2019, 499 ha in 2020, 2,611 ha in 2021, 1,405 ha in 2022, 471 ha in 2023, 2,167 ha in 2024, 1,049 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,981 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.1% of the area of London (112 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
    11,302 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 area0.12 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.12 hectares of 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 30.8 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jun 30.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Jun 31.0 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Jun 31.6 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Jun 30.0 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Jun 29.5 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Jun 31.6 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm High 25
21 Jun 31.6 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Jun 31.0 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Jun 31.2 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jun 31.5 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Jun 31.0 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jun 31.2 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jun 31.3 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Jun 30.3 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jun 31.5 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jun 31.6 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Jul 31.8 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Jul 32.3 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Jul 31.7 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Jul 32.4 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Jul 32.1 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Jul 31.4 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Jul 30.9 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Jul 30.4 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jul 31.0 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jul 31.0 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Jul 31.2 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Jul after 32.2 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Jul after 32.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jul after 32.7 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jul after 32.1 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Jul after 30.0 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Jul after 29.2 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Jul after 30.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jul after 31.5 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Jul after 30.1 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jul after 30.9 °C 30 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jun 2026
After · 18 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 guideline26 days
PM10141 µg/m³
Optical depth0.94
1920212223242526272829301234567891011121314
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 · 306Every 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 11 July 2026 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 June 2026 to 11 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,217 hectares (112.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Xá-Muteba (11,302 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. 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.

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 21 June 2026 to 11 July 2026. 306 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.