How long did the Feshi fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 May 2026 and 9 June 2026: 11 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 5,060 hectares (50.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Feshi (5,095 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2026-05-30 → 2026-06-09

Feshi fire, 30 May 2026 Feshi

Out · last detection 10 Jun 2026, 12:03 UTC

The fire started on 30 May 2026 in Feshi, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,060 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 209th largest in Kwango since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 512 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area: 5,060ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 30 May 2026 – 9 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 30 May; 2026
Heat detections: 155; in a single hotspot: 261 MW
Danger at start: 17; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 6.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Jun 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 May9 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

303112346910

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high

36km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,607 ha in 2017, 115 ha in 2018, 2,474 ha in 2019, 707 ha in 2020, 1,769 ha in 2021, 2,139 ha in 2022, 1,686 ha in 2023, 1,099 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,725 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Feshi where it started

5,095 ha reached on 30 May

0.3 %

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)
30 May	31.3 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
31 May	31.2 °C	31 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
1 Jun	31.4 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
2 Jun	31.3 °C	32 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
3 Jun	31.5 °C	31 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
4 Jun	31.0 °C	30 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
5 Jun	30.7 °C	31 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
6 Jun	31.1 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
7 Jun	31.5 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
8 Jun	30.5 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
9 Jun	32.2 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
10 Jun after	31.3 °C	30 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
11 Jun after	31.3 °C	35 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
12 Jun after	31.1 °C	27 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
13 Jun after	30.4 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
14 Jun after	31.1 °C	26 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
15 Jun after	29.6 °C	33 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Jun after	28.5 °C	41 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
17 Jun after	29.3 °C	41 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
18 Jun after	27.5 °C	50 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 22
19 Jun after	29.7 °C	48 %	25 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 23 May 2026

After · 16 Jun 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 7 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 176 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 113: 7.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak176 µg/m³

Days over the guideline16 days

PM10182 µg/m³

Optical depth1.15

WHO 15

28293031123456789101112

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 · 155Every 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

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Feshi fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 May 2026 and 9 June 2026: 11 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 5,060 hectares (50.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Feshi (5,095 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned