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Bukama fire, 18 July 2026 Bukama

Out · last detection 23 Jul 2026, 11:57 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Bukama, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,360 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 140th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 463 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
5,360ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
18 Jul 2026 – 22 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
18 Jul
2026
Heat detections
129
in a single hotspot: 155 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul22 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

18192023

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
26km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,094 ha in 2016, 1,321 ha in 2017, 3,227 ha in 2018, 3,482 ha in 2019, 1,293 ha in 2020, 110 ha in 2021, 2,807 ha in 2022, 1,801 ha in 2023, 1,073 ha in 2024, 3,268 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,311 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bukama where it started
    5,387 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.3 %

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)
17 Jul 29.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jul 30.2 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jul 29.6 °C 27 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Jul 31.4 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul 32.0 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Jul 31.3 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Jul after 33.0 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jul after 32.5 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Jul after 32.3 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jul after 31.2 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jul after 31.0 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul after 31.6 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Jul after 31.4 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jul after 30.7 °C 38 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul after 32.0 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Aug after 30.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug after 31.0 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug after 30.9 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug after 31.5 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug after 32.0 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Aug after 32.2 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug after 32.6 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Aug after 33.0 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2026
After · 29 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 19 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 302 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 189: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak302 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10312 µg/m³
Optical depth1.52
16171819202122232425
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 · 129Every 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 18 July 2026 and 22 July 2026: 5 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 5,360 hectares (53.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bukama (5,387 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 26 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.