Dungu fire, March 2025 Dungu
The fire started on 3 March 2025 in Dungu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,095 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 51th largest in Upper Uele since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 43 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 8,095ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 3 Mar 2025 – 9 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 3 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 253
- in a single hotspot: 70 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.1GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 18 Mar.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,216 ha in 2016, 5,423 ha in 2017, 6,372 ha in 2018, 2,532 ha in 2019, 3,412 ha in 2020, 1,451 ha in 2021, 2,731 ha in 2023, 4,495 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,134 ha that had burned before.
- 3,478 ha Dungu fire, January 2018 5,565 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,851 ha Dungu fire, February 2016 16,396 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,835 ha Dungu fire, February 2017 6,382 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,625 ha Dungu fire, January 2020 123,194 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,533 ha Dungu fire, January 2023 10,655 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,264 ha Dungu fire, March 2024 6,597 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,377 ha Dungu fire, February 2024 6,140 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,308 ha Dungu fire, January 2018 5,404 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Dungu where it started8,151 ha reached on 3 Mar0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Mar | 36.1 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Mar | 35.6 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Mar | 38.5 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Mar | 38.0 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Mar | 36.6 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Mar | 35.4 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Mar | 34.2 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 10 Mar after | 33.7 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Mar after | 36.6 °C | 11 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 12 Mar after | 33.2 °C | 18 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 13 Mar after | 35.2 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 14 Mar after | 34.8 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 44 |
| 15 Mar after | 32.8 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Mar after | 34.5 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Mar after | 36.1 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Mar after | 30.4 °C | 48 % | 35 km/h | 3.0 mm | Low 10 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 8 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 128 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 253Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 44,131 haDungu12 February 2019 · 10 days · 17 km away
- 123,194 haDungu22 January 2020 · 9 days · 23 km away
- 43,572 haDungu22 January 2018 · 12 days · 28 km away
- 64,646 haDungu9 January 2025 · 10 days · 30 km away
- 58,675 haDungu13 January 2017 · 8 days · 34 km away
- 41,662 haDungu14 January 2026 · 18 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dungu fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2025 and 9 March 2025: 7 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 8,095 hectares (81.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dungu (8,151 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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.
Report an error
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.