Idiofa fire, 2 August 2025 Idiofa
The fire started on 2 August 2025 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 13 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 Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 7,180ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 2 Aug 2025 – 14 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 2 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 688
- in a single hotspot: 175 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.3GW
- 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 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, August 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
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 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 after | 32.6 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Aug after | 32.8 °C | 33 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 18 Aug after | 32.0 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Aug after | 32.2 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 28 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Aug after | 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Idiofa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 August 2025 and 14 August 2025: 13 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 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 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.