Active fire cluster 37 km NNW of Gabela, Angola — 16 satellite hotspots was recorded by Global Incident Tracker on Tuesday, 6 October 2026 at 00:00 UTC. The event is classified as a wildfire incident with a severity rating of Moderate, and was detected through FIRMS.
NASA FIRMS satellite detection: 16 active fire hotspots within roughly 25 km, total fire radiative power 175 MW, observed by VIIRS on 2026-10-06. Clusters this size usually indicate an active wildfire or large-scale burning rather than a single point source.
Where this happened
The incident is located in Angola (Africa), whose capital is Luanda. Historically, Angola is most affected by floods, droughts and epidemics. You can follow every incident recorded in this country, updated live, on the Angola incident tracker.
Approximate coordinates of the reported event are -10.538°, 14.258°. The marker on the map above shows this position; for news-derived reports the location reflects the place named in media coverage and may represent a district or city rather than an exact site.
Understanding wildfire events
Uncontrolled vegetation fires in forest, bush, grass or peat. Wildfire behaviour is driven by three things: fuel (dry vegetation), weather (heat, low humidity, wind) and terrain. Wind shifts are what most often turn a controlled perimeter into an emergency, which is why evacuation orders can change very quickly.
How severity is rated
Global Incident Tracker rates every event on a four-step scale — Minor, Moderate, Severe and Extreme — derived from the source signal: earthquake magnitude, official GDACS alert colour, or the volume of independent media reporting for news-derived incidents. This event is currently rated Moderate. Ratings can change as more information becomes available, and a rating is a monitoring signal rather than an official government assessment.
Safety guidance for wildfire situations
- Leave early if advised — late evacuation on smoke-filled roads is the most dangerous option.
- Close windows and vents, remove flammable items from around the building and wet down the perimeter if time allows.
- Wear cotton, long sleeves and an N95-type mask; smoke harms lungs long before flames arrive.
- Keep a packed bag, full fuel tank and two separate escape routes planned.
- Follow only official instructions from local authorities and emergency services — this page is a monitoring record, not an emergency alert.
Data and verification
This record was generated automatically from FIRMS and de-duplicated against our archive. Early reports for any incident can be revised: locations get refined, magnitudes are recalculated and impact figures change as assessments arrive. We deliberately do not publish casualty numbers unless an official source states them. The original source report is linked at the top of this page.
Keep watching the situation on our live world incident map, browse every wildfires we track on the Wildfire tracker, or see today's global picture on the incidents today page.
Timeline and sources
Satellite detection
Detected automatically by NASA FIRMS. A heat detection is not a confirmed report of a wildfire or its damage.
How statuses are decided · the number of reports is never treated as confirmation.
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· received · event time 6 Oct 2026, 00:00 UTCFirst report Satellite detection
First recorded from NASA FIRMS.
Times are when this site received each report, in UTC; the event time is shown where the source gave one. Copies of one syndicated story count as one report.
Conditions at the time
No rainfall was recorded that day, and the temperature peaked at 30°C. Conditions are shown for context only — they do not establish a cause.
Weather reanalysis for this location and date via Open-Meteo.