How long did the Basoko fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 February 2026 and 11 March 2026: 18 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 16,255 hectares (162.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Basoko (16,368 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2026-02-22 → 2026-03-11

Basoko fire, 22 February 2026 Basoko

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2026, 12:45 UTC

The fire started on 22 February 2026 in Basoko, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,255 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Tshopo since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 100 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area: 16,255ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 22 Feb 2026 – 11 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 22 Feb; 2026
Heat detections: 419; in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start: 5; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 5.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Feb11 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

22232425262728126789

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

35km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.6 mm on 18 Mar.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,899 ha in 2016, 1,703 ha in 2018, 6,855 ha in 2020, 1,037 ha in 2021, 404 ha in 2023, 8,508 ha in 2024, 1,921 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,173 ha that had burned before.

7,680 ha Basoko fire, February 2024 12,722 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Basoko where it started

16,368 ha reached on 22 Feb

0.7 %

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)
22 Feb	30.5 °C	55 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
23 Feb	32.7 °C	48 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 8
24 Feb	33.0 °C	49 %	23 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 10
25 Feb	33.0 °C	46 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
26 Feb	33.7 °C	33 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
27 Feb	34.0 °C	32 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
28 Feb	33.9 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
1 Mar	35.4 °C	29 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
2 Mar	33.0 °C	48 %	26 km/h	2.8 mm	Very low 5
3 Mar	29.5 °C	51 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 9
4 Mar	31.9 °C	37 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
5 Mar	32.8 °C	36 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
6 Mar	33.2 °C	39 %	22 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
7 Mar	34.1 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
8 Mar	36.4 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
9 Mar	36.7 °C	29 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
10 Mar	34.5 °C	35 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
11 Mar	34.9 °C	39 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
12 Mar after	32.6 °C	42 %	26 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 17
13 Mar after	35.1 °C	41 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
14 Mar after	36.9 °C	32 %	18 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 21
15 Mar after	29.6 °C	60 %	20 km/h	8.3 mm	Very low 2
16 Mar after	32.6 °C	44 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
17 Mar after	34.4 °C	40 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 16
18 Mar after	31.1 °C	57 %	34 km/h	11.6 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 15 Feb 2026

After · 18 Mar 2026

Before After

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 3 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 72: 4.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak102 µg/m³

Days over the guideline23 days

PM10120 µg/m³

Optical depth1.42

WHO 15

2021222324252627281234567891011121314

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 · 419Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Basoko fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 February 2026 and 11 March 2026: 18 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 16,255 hectares (162.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Basoko (16,368 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned