Dungu fire, 9 January 2026 Dungu, Faradje
The fire started on 9 January 2026 in Dungu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 45,193 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Upper Uele since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 21 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Dungu · 2017Dungu · 2025Dungu · 2018Dungu · 2016
- Burnt area
- 45,193ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 9 Jan 2026 – 26 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 9 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,387
- in a single hotspot: 236 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.1GW
- detected power per day, on average
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 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,234 ha in 2016, 30,724 ha in 2017, 21,623 ha in 2018, 21,050 ha in 2019, 12,221 ha in 2020, 18,402 ha in 2021, 5,381 ha in 2022, 5,298 ha in 2023, 8,850 ha in 2024, 25,264 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 44,679 ha that had burned before.
- 27,276 ha Dungu fire, January 2017 58,675 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 20,934 ha Dungu fire, January 2025 64,646 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,823 ha Dungu fire, January 2018 43,572 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,478 ha Dungu fire, January 2016 17,742 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,369 ha Dungu fire, February 2021 13,095 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,286 ha Dungu fire, February 2019 44,131 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,097 ha Dungu fire, February 2021 6,197 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,940 ha Dungu fire, January 2018 19,183 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Dungu where it started45,229 ha reached on 9 Jan1.3 %
-
257 ha reached on 25 Jan0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.7 hectares of built-up land and about 250 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Jan | 34.6 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Jan | 32.9 °C | 26 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Jan | 34.0 °C | 26 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Jan | 33.4 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Jan | 35.9 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Jan | 35.1 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Jan | 34.9 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 16 Jan | 34.8 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Jan | 34.6 °C | 20 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 18 Jan | 35.8 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Jan | 36.0 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Jan | 36.6 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 21 Jan | 36.1 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 22 Jan | 36.8 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Jan | 34.0 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Jan | 36.8 °C | 20 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Jan | 37.4 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 26 Jan | 36.9 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 27 Jan after | 35.5 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Jan after | 31.7 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 29 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 26 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 30 Jan after | 36.0 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 31 Jan after | 34.9 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Feb after | 31.6 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Feb after | 34.5 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Feb after | 36.4 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 4 Feb after | 37.3 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 5 Feb after | 35.6 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
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 27 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 162 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 79: 5.3 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 · 1,387Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 58,675 haDungu13 January 2017 · 8 days · 11 km away
- 64,646 haDungu9 January 2025 · 10 days · 13 km away
- 41,662 haDungu14 January 2026 · 18 days · 24 km away
- 30,777 haDungu17 January 2017 · 9 days · 26 km away
- 43,572 haDungu22 January 2018 · 12 days · 28 km away
- 44,131 haDungu12 February 2019 · 10 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dungu fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 January 2026 and 26 January 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 45,193 hectares (451.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dungu (45,229 ha, 1.3 %); Faradje (257 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,387 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.