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Bukama fire, 19 June 2026 Bukama

Out · last detection 1 Jul 2026, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 19 June 2026 in Bukama, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,578 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 226 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
8,578ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
19 Jun 2026 – 30 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
19 Jun
2026
Heat detections
219
in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jun30 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232526272829301

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
29km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,673 ha in 2016, 2,575 ha in 2017, 1,278 ha in 2018, 234 ha in 2019, 1,864 ha in 2020, 1,060 ha in 2021, 2,392 ha in 2022, 67 ha in 2024, 1,122 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,980 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bukama where it started
    8,626 ha reached on 12 Jun
    0.4 %

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)
19 Jun 32.9 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Jun 32.9 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jun 31.6 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jun 31.3 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Jun 31.6 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jun 32.2 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jun 32.0 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jun 32.9 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jun 31.8 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jun 32.1 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Jun 32.6 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jun 33.2 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Jul after 33.6 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Jul after 34.1 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Jul after 34.0 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Jul after 33.2 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Jul after 32.7 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Jul after 31.9 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Jul after 31.1 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jul after 32.1 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Jul after 32.9 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Jul after 33.4 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jun 2026
After · 7 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 18 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM1092 µg/m³
Optical depth0.57
1718192021222324252627282930123
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 · 219Every 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 Bukama fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 June 2026 and 30 June 2026: 12 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 8,578 hectares (85.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bukama (8,626 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.