Dungu fire, 12 January 2026 Dungu, Faradje
The fire started on 12 January 2026 in Dungu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 58,059 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Upper Uele since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 15 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Faradje · 2019Dungu · 2020Dungu · 2023Dungu · 2024
- Burnt area
- 58,059ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 12 Jan 2026 – 6 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 12 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,423
- in a single hotspot: 385 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- 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 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 9 Feb.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 26,936 ha in 2016, 42,707 ha in 2017, 16,511 ha in 2018, 35,437 ha in 2019, 36,024 ha in 2020, 35,563 ha in 2021, 25,621 ha in 2022, 23,853 ha in 2023, 24,212 ha in 2024, 26,727 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 58,217 ha that had burned before.
- 31,960 ha Faradje fire, January 2019 80,671 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 28,281 ha Dungu fire, January 2020 123,194 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 18,356 ha Dungu fire, January 2023 35,499 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 16,346 ha Dungu fire, January 2024 43,011 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 16,034 ha Dungu fire, January 2017 38,040 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,318 ha Dungu fire, December 2017 16,567 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,521 ha Dungu fire, January 2025 16,485 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,876 ha Dungu fire, January 2016 38,657 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 started51,137 ha reached on 12 Jan1.5 %
-
7,336 ha reached on 12 Jan0.6 %
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 was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 Jan | 32.8 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Jan | 34.0 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Jan | 34.5 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Jan | 34.0 °C | 24 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Jan | 33.8 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Jan | 33.7 °C | 22 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Jan | 34.3 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Jan | 35.4 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Jan | 35.4 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 20 Jan | 35.8 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Jan | 34.8 °C | 24 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Jan | 36.2 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 23 Jan | 34.4 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Jan | 36.4 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Jan | 37.2 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Jan | 36.0 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Jan | 35.1 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Jan | 32.3 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 29 Jan | 35.4 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 30 Jan | 35.7 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 31 Jan | 35.3 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Feb | 30.9 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Feb | 34.1 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Feb | 35.8 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Feb | 36.7 °C | 18 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 5 Feb | 34.5 °C | 26 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Feb | 34.1 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 7 Feb after | 33.1 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Feb after | 33.2 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Feb after | 32.6 °C | 37 % | 33 km/h | 1.7 mm | High 22 |
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 144 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 86: 5.7 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 · 1,423Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 43,011 haDungu26 January 2024 · 18 days · 17 km away
- 38,657 haDungu2 January 2016 · 17 days · 20 km away
- 123,194 haDungu22 January 2020 · 12 days · 21 km away
- 80,671 haFaradjeJanuary 2019 · 25 days · 27 km away
- 44,131 haDungu10 February 2019 · 12 days · 36 km away
- 43,572 haDungu15 January 2018 · 23 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dungu fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 January 2026 and 6 February 2026: 26 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 58,059 hectares (580.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dungu (51,137 ha, 1.5 %); Faradje (7,336 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,423 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.