How long did the Fizi fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 August 2026 to 20 September 2026 (46 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 August 2026 to 16 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,432 hectares (214.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Fizi (21,577 ha, 1.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 26.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · 2026-08-06 → 2026-09-20

Fizi fire, 6 August 2026 Fizi

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2026, 22:57 UTC

The fire started on 6 August 2026 in Fizi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 46 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,432 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the largest fire in South Kivu since 2016 (of 19 with a page). Number 59 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Fizi · 2018 Fizi · 2026 Fizi · 2026 Fizi · 2026

Burnt area: 21,432ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 46days; 6 Aug 2026 – 20 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 6 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 1,273; in a single hotspot: 147 MW
Danger at start: 25; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 326MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Aug20 Sept

Play back 20 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

6 Aug 13 Aug 17 Aug 21 Aug 28 Aug 4 Sept 11 Sept 18 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

26°high

66km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.7 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,776 ha in 2016, 1,830 ha in 2017, 4,059 ha in 2018, 1,952 ha in 2019, 2,940 ha in 2020, 5,777 ha in 2021, 636 ha in 2022, 6,437 ha in 2023, 6,501 ha in 2024, 9,672 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,955 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 14% of the area of London (214 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Fizi where it started

21,577 ha reached on 6 Aug

1.4 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area16 ha

Residents≈ 2,100

Inside the perimeter there were about 16 hectares of built-up land and about 2,100 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)
6 Aug	23.4 °C	40 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 Aug	23.8 °C	39 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	High 25
8 Aug	23.1 °C	38 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
9 Aug	23.3 °C	35 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
10 Aug	24.3 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
11 Aug	23.6 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
12 Aug	23.6 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
13 Aug	23.3 °C	25 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
14 Aug	22.8 °C	32 %	66 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
15 Aug	22.3 °C	41 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Aug	22.4 °C	41 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
17 Aug	23.7 °C	37 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
18 Aug	23.7 °C	37 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
19 Aug	23.9 °C	33 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
20 Aug	22.2 °C	39 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
21 Aug	23.9 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Aug	24.6 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
23 Aug	23.6 °C	39 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	High 25
24 Aug	24.0 °C	41 %	60 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
25 Aug	24.6 °C	41 %	51 km/h	0.4 mm	High 31
26 Aug	24.7 °C	33 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 Aug	24.2 °C	30 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 Aug	24.2 °C	31 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
29 Aug	23.2 °C	32 %	64 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 Aug	23.8 °C	31 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Aug	24.2 °C	31 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
1 Sept	24.6 °C	31 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Sept	25.0 °C	29 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
3 Sept	25.0 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Sept	23.4 °C	37 %	25 km/h	0.2 mm	High 26
5 Sept	26.2 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
6 Sept	26.0 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
7 Sept	24.9 °C	30 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Sept	24.1 °C	29 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Sept	23.5 °C	33 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
10 Sept	23.7 °C	36 %	60 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
11 Sept	24.5 °C	34 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
12 Sept	24.8 °C	37 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 28
13 Sept	25.9 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
14 Sept	26.0 °C	32 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Sept	25.7 °C	34 %	49 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
16 Sept	23.0 °C	50 %	42 km/h	5.3 mm	Very low 5
17 Sept	23.1 °C	39 %	44 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 12
18 Sept	24.2 °C	39 %	51 km/h	0.1 mm	High 22
19 Sept	23.6 °C	38 %	50 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
20 Sept	25.2 °C	30 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
21 Sept after	24.4 °C	33 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
22 Sept after	21.9 °C	59 %	33 km/h	7.7 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Jul 2026

After · 27 Sept 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 16 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 188 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 116: 7.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak188 µg/m³

Days over the guideline50 days

PM10189 µg/m³

Optical depth1.71

WHO 15

456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223

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 · 1,273Every 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Fizi fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 August 2026 to 20 September 2026 (46 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 August 2026 to 16 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,432 hectares (214.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Fizi (21,577 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 26.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 August 2026 to 16 September 2026. 1,273 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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