Feshi fire, 31 May 2026 Feshi
The fire started on 31 May 2026 in Feshi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,791 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 74th largest in Kwango since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 263 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Gungu · 2026Kahemba · 2026Gungu · 2020
- Burnt area
- 7,791ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 31 May 2026 – 20 Jun 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 31 May
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 168
- in a single hotspot: 222 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 222MW
- 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 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 49 ha in 2016, 899 ha in 2017, 4,728 ha in 2018, 689 ha in 2019, 1,094 ha in 2020, 2,385 ha in 2021, 1,633 ha in 2022, 2,198 ha in 2023, 2,320 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,813 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
-
Feshi where it started7,844 ha reached on 31 May0.4 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Jun | 31.4 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Jun | 30.1 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 9 Jun | 32.0 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Jun | 31.4 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Jun | 32.0 °C | 33 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Jun | 31.2 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Jun | 31.0 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Jun | 31.1 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 15 Jun | 30.7 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Jun | 29.8 °C | 37 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Jun | 28.7 °C | 47 % | 24 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 18 Jun | 28.3 °C | 48 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 19 Jun | 31.1 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 20 Jun | 31.3 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 21 Jun after | 31.2 °C | 40 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 22 Jun after | 30.0 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 23 Jun after | 29.2 °C | 40 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 24 Jun after | 31.0 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 25 Jun after | 31.6 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Jun after | 30.7 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
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 7 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 100 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 64: 4.3 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 · 168Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Feshi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 May 2026 to 20 June 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 June 2026 to 16 June 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,791 hectares (77.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Feshi (7,844 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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: 16 June 2026 → 20 June 2026.
- Start date: 7 June 2026 → 31 May 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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 June 2026 to 16 June 2026. 168 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.
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.