Idiofa fire, 26 July 2025 Idiofa
The fire started on 26 July 2025 in Idiofa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,180 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 127th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 57 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, of 118.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Idiofa · 2018Idiofa · 2020Idiofa · 2016Idiofa · 2020
- Burnt area
- 7,180ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 26 Jul 2025 – 21 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 26 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 688
- in a single hotspot: 175 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 317MW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,155 ha in 2016, 2,334 ha in 2017, 4,099 ha in 2018, 2,359 ha in 2019, 3,700 ha in 2020, 2,090 ha in 2021, 2,152 ha in 2022, 3,227 ha in 2023, 2,762 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,558 ha that had burned before.
- 3,703 ha Idiofa fire, July 2018 8,965 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,636 ha Idiofa fire, July 2020 7,078 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,591 ha Idiofa fire, July 2016 5,309 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 348 ha Idiofa fire, July 2020 15,602 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
-
Idiofa where it started7,232 ha reached on 26 Jul0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Aug | 33.0 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Aug | 32.6 °C | 31 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Aug | 33.0 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Aug | 33.2 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 6 Aug | 32.8 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Aug | 32.5 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Aug | 31.9 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Aug | 31.3 °C | 46 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 25 |
| 10 Aug | 33.2 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 11 Aug | 32.1 °C | 42 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 12 Aug | 32.0 °C | 46 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Aug | 29.7 °C | 52 % | 28 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 14 Aug | 31.5 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 15 Aug | 32.6 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 Aug | 33.4 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Aug | 32.8 °C | 33 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 18 Aug | 32.0 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Aug | 32.2 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Aug | 34.5 °C | 28 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Aug | 32.2 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Aug after | 33.5 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Aug after | 34.7 °C | 25 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
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 143 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 · 688Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,965 haIdiofa29 July 2018 · 13 days · 4 km away
- 22,627 haIdiofa11 August 2026 · 22 days · 12 km away
- 15,602 haIdiofa15 July 2020 · 35 days · 23 km away
- 13,910 haIdiofa17 August 2026 · 16 days · 23 km away
- 9,800 haIdiofa28 July 2024 · 26 days · 30 km away
- 32,803 haIdiofa29 July 2026 · 31 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Idiofa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 July 2025 to 21 August 2025 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 August 2025 to 14 August 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,180 hectares (71.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Idiofa (7,232 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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: 14 August 2025 → 21 August 2025.
- Start date: 2 August 2025 → 26 July 2025.
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 2 August 2025 to 14 August 2025. 688 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.