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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Bagata fire, 5 August 2026 Bagata, Masi-Manimba, Bulungu

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2026, 12:44 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2026 in Bagata, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,237 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 31th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 94 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
17,237ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
5 Aug 2026 – 27 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
3
territories
Started on
5 Aug
2026
Heat detections
453
in a single hotspot: 132 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
4.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

568101213141516171920212223242627

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
28km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.9 mm on 28 Aug.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,655 ha in 2016, 3,664 ha in 2017, 1,160 ha in 2018, 1,679 ha in 2019, 7,565 ha in 2020, 3,087 ha in 2021, 922 ha in 2022, 6,116 ha in 2023, 2,031 ha in 2024, 4,706 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,647 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bagata where it started
    8,698 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.5 %
  2. Masi-Manimba
    6,612 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.5 %
  3. Bulungu
    2,035 ha reached on 6 Aug
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
1 Aug 32.3 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Aug 32.6 °C 44 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Aug 31.8 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Aug 33.6 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Aug 34.0 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
6 Aug 33.9 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Aug 31.6 °C 51 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
8 Aug 33.8 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
9 Aug 33.4 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
10 Aug 33.0 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Aug 32.5 °C 47 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Aug 34.9 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
13 Aug 35.5 °C 40 % 19 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
14 Aug 33.6 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
15 Aug 33.0 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Aug 33.4 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Aug 35.4 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Aug 34.3 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug 34.0 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Aug 34.5 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Aug 33.4 °C 46 % 20 km/h 0.5 mm High 27
22 Aug 35.5 °C 41 % 24 km/h 5.4 mm Low 7
23 Aug 33.3 °C 50 % 24 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 11
24 Aug 33.1 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
25 Aug 34.7 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
26 Aug 34.3 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.4 mm High 24
27 Aug 38.1 °C 30 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Aug after 33.4 °C 48 % 33 km/h 5.9 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2026
After · 3 Sept 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 19 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 184 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 115: 7.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak184 µg/m³
Days over the guideline32 days
PM10190 µg/m³
Optical depth2.72
3031123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 453Every 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 Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bagata fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2026 and 27 August 2026: 23 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 17,237 hectares (172.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bagata (8,698 ha, 0.5 %); Masi-Manimba (6,612 ha, 0.5 %); Bulungu (2,035 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Congo - Kinshasa (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

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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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 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.