Burned area
satellite only6,960ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · –
Bulungu fire, 11 August 2026 Bulungu, Idiofa
Out · last detection 28 Aug 2026, 12:23 UTC
The fire started on 11 August 2026 in Bulungu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,960 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 294 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 515.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only18days
11 Aug 2026 to 28 Aug 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 28 Aug 2026, 12:23 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only11 Aug 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only79
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 26 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only190MW
Total radiative power on 17 August 2026; hotspots that day: 23.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 17 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model18.1FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 2.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model36.5°C · 35% RH
High of 36.5 °C and minimum humidity of 35% on 27 August 2026; gusts of 31 km/h on 28 August 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 11 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 2,000people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 16 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logLast day with fire: 23 August 2026 → 28 August 2026.
-
logStart date: 16 August 2026 → 11 August 2026.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 6,960 ha
- Dates
- 11 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
- Name
- Bulungu
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/bulungu-2026-08-5?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire bulungu-2026-08-5.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-11 | 1 | 4 | 31.3 | 22 | 49 | 8 | 22.3 | 0.5 | 18.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-12 | 12 | 63 | 33.9 | 21.3 | 40 | 6.3 | 18.4 | 0.1 | 20.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-13 | 11 | 95 | 33.9 | 23.1 | 45 | 7.3 | 24.1 | 0.2 | 21.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-14 | 0 | 0 | 32.3 | 23.2 | 48 | 6.6 | 26.3 | 0.7 | 16.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-15 | 0 | 0 | 32.4 | 23.7 | 42 | 5.7 | 18.4 | 0 | 19 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-16 | 1 | 2 | 33.1 | 21.6 | 37 | 6.7 | 19.8 | 0.1 | 22.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-17 | 23 | 190 | 33.7 | 21.9 | 35 | 7.9 | 19.4 | 0 | 24.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-18 | 0 | 0 | 32.8 | 21.6 | 38 | 8.1 | 24.1 | 0 | 24.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-19 | 18 | 104 | 33.2 | 20.7 | 36 | 7.3 | 19.1 | 0 | 24.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-20 | 0 | 0 | 32.8 | 21.5 | 38 | 8.9 | 26.3 | 0 | 26 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 32.5 | 22.2 | 40 | 8.1 | 20.5 | 0.1 | 25.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-22 | 2 | 7 | 33 | 23.2 | 49 | 8.1 | 23 | 4.4 | 5.2 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2026-08-23 | 1 | 5 | 33.1 | 23.3 | 50 | 7.3 | 20.9 | 0.8 | 10.7 | bajo | 1 |
| 2026-08-24 | 7 | 26 | 32.8 | 23.1 | 42 | 6.6 | 20.5 | 0 | 17.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-25 | 2 | 12 | 33.7 | 22.7 | 45 | 7.4 | 22.7 | 0.1 | 18.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-26 | 0 | 0 | 32.2 | 22.5 | 50 | 8.5 | 20.9 | 2.8 | 6.1 | bajo | 1 |
| 2026-08-27 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 21.8 | 35 | 7.2 | 23 | 0.1 | 19.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-28 | 1 | 3 | 33.3 | 23.4 | 49 | 10.7 | 30.6 | 12.1 | 2.9 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2026-08-29 | 0 | 0 | 28.4 | 21.7 | 63 | 9.5 | 25.2 | 2.1 | 2.7 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 6,960ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 11 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 11 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 79
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 46MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
11 Aug28 Aug
28 Aug 2026
How it evolved, day by day
11 Aug
17 Aug
25 Aug
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
36°high
31km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 29 Aug.
This area had burned before
67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,975 ha in 2016, 968 ha in 2019, 2,820 ha in 2020, 1,386 ha in 2021, 1,628 ha in 2022, 1,301 ha in 2023, 530 ha in 2024, 2,561 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,659 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Bulungu where it started4,090 ha reached on 11 Aug0.3 %
-
2,919 ha reached on 12 Aug0.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Built-up area16 ha
Residents≈ 2,000
Inside the perimeter there were about 16 hectares of built-up land and about 2,000 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Aug | 31.3 °C | 49 % | 22 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 12 Aug | 33.9 °C | 40 % | 18 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Aug | 33.9 °C | 45 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 14 Aug | 32.3 °C | 48 % | 26 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 15 Aug | 32.4 °C | 42 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 16 Aug | 33.1 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 17 Aug | 33.7 °C | 35 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 18 Aug | 32.8 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 19 Aug | 33.2 °C | 36 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 20 Aug | 32.8 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 21 Aug | 32.5 °C | 40 % | 20 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 22 Aug | 33.0 °C | 49 % | 23 km/h | 4.4 mm | Very low 5 |
| 23 Aug | 33.1 °C | 50 % | 21 km/h | 0.8 mm | Low 11 |
| 24 Aug | 32.8 °C | 42 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 25 Aug | 33.7 °C | 45 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 26 Aug | 32.2 °C | 50 % | 21 km/h | 2.8 mm | Low 6 |
| 27 Aug | 36.5 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 28 Aug | 33.3 °C | 49 % | 31 km/h | 12.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 29 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 63 % | 25 km/h | 2.1 mm | Very low 3 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 4 Aug 2026
After · 4 Sept 2026
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 19 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 542 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 324: 22 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak542 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM10562 µg/m³
Optical depth3.59
WHO 15
9 Aug14 Aug19 Aug24 Aug29 Aug
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 · 79Every 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
- 7,423 haBulungu20 July 2020 · 31 days · 20 km away
- 13,414 haBulungu12 August 2019 · 12 days · 21 km away
- 7,642 haIdiofa12 August 2026 · 22 days · 24 km away
- 7,978 haBulungu13 July 2016 · 29 days · 28 km away
- 7,858 haBulunguJuly 2022 · 28 days · 28 km away
- 296,599 haBulungu27 July 2026 · 50 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bulungu fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2026 to 28 August 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 August 2026 to 23 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,960 hectares (69.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bulungu (4,090 ha, 0.3 %); Idiofa (2,919 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Democratic Republic of the Congo (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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 23 August 2026 → 28 August 2026.
- Start date: 16 August 2026 → 11 August 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 August 2026 to 23 August 2026. 79 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.