Idiofa fire, July 2025 Idiofa
The fire started on 26 July 2025 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,263 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 223th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 111 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 5,263ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 26 Jul 2025 – 13 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 26 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 407
- in a single hotspot: 134 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.8GW
- sum of detected power
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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,880 ha in 2016, 1,988 ha in 2017, 1,843 ha in 2018, 3,622 ha in 2019, 3,557 ha in 2020, 2,061 ha in 2021, 135 ha in 2022, 1,940 ha in 2023, 4,413 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,110 ha that had burned before.
- 3,488 ha Idiofa fire, July 2019 8,090 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,258 ha Idiofa fire, July 2016 21,063 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 966 ha Idiofa fire, July 2018 6,377 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 34 ha Idiofa fire, July 2024 9,800 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Idiofa where it started5,298 ha reached on 22 Jul0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jul | 34.4 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Jul | 32.0 °C | 47 % | 22 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 28 Jul | 28.5 °C | 62 % | 28 km/h | 6.5 mm | Very low 3 |
| 29 Jul | 32.2 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 30 Jul | 33.2 °C | 26 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Jul | 32.8 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Aug | 32.6 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Aug | 33.0 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Aug | 32.4 °C | 34 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Aug | 33.5 °C | 24 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Aug | 33.6 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Aug | 33.3 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Aug | 33.3 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Aug | 32.6 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Aug | 31.4 °C | 47 % | 28 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 10 Aug | 33.8 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 11 Aug | 32.2 °C | 44 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Aug | 32.2 °C | 44 % | 25 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 13 Aug | 30.7 °C | 48 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 42 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 16 Aug after | 33.8 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Aug after | 32.2 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Aug after | 35.6 °C | 25 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Aug after | 33.0 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Aug after | 35.3 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
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 1 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 198 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 128: 8.5 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 · 407Every 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 Idiofa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 July 2025 and 13 August 2025: 19 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 5,263 hectares (52.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Idiofa (5,298 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 32 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 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
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
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.