Idiofa fire, 13 August 2025 Idiofa
The fire started on 13 August 2025 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,419 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 79th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 28 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 9,419ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 13 Aug 2025 – 30 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 13 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 557
- in a single hotspot: 165 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 8.7GW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 8 Sept.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,383 ha in 2016, 5,907 ha in 2017, 2,839 ha in 2018, 2,797 ha in 2019, 3,451 ha in 2020, 2,861 ha in 2021, 2,490 ha in 2022, 6,253 ha in 2023, 1,405 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,545 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Idiofa where it started9,472 ha reached on 9 Aug0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Aug | 31.9 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Aug | 31.4 °C | 47 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Aug | 34.1 °C | 37 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 25 |
| 11 Aug | 32.7 °C | 43 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 12 Aug | 32.0 °C | 46 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Aug | 30.8 °C | 51 % | 31 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 14 Aug | 31.3 °C | 46 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Aug | 31.9 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Aug | 33.6 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Aug | 34.2 °C | 28 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 18 Aug | 33.4 °C | 36 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 19 Aug | 32.0 °C | 39 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Aug | 34.7 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Aug | 32.7 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Aug | 33.6 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Aug | 33.7 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Aug | 33.4 °C | 32 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Aug | 33.3 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 26 Aug | 33.9 °C | 40 % | 26 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Aug | 33.0 °C | 44 % | 31 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 28 Aug | 32.5 °C | 45 % | 27 km/h | 1.5 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 29 Aug | 35.3 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 27 |
| 30 Aug | 34.2 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 31 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Sept after | 35.1 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Sept after | 35.6 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Sept after | 34.4 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 46 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Sept after | 34.3 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 42 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Sept after | 34.3 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 43 % | 34 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 21 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 246 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 131: 8.7 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 · 557Every 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 13 August 2025 and 30 August 2025: 18 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 9,419 hectares (94.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Idiofa (9,472 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 36 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.