Burned area
satellite only5,311ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 27 Jul 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · –
Idiofa fire, 27 July 2026 Idiofa, Bulungu
Out · last detection 20 Aug 2026, 11:34 UTC
The fire started on 27 July 2026 in Idiofa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,311 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 466 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 515.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Use this data
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Fire page data · version 2026-11-05matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only24days
27 Jul 2026 to 19 Aug 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 20 Aug 2026, 11:34 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only27 Jul 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 27 Jul 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only129
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 48 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP + NOAA-20)
- Date
- 27 Jul 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only427MW
Total radiative power on 4 August 2026; hotspots that day: 30.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 4 Aug 2026
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model24.0FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 4.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 27 Jul 2026, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model35.4°C · 38% RH
High of 35.4 °C and minimum humidity of 38% on 13 August 2026; gusts of 30 km/h on 30 July 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 27 Jul 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logLast day with fire: 12 August 2026 → 19 August 2026.
-
logStart date: 2 August 2026 → 27 July 2026.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 19 August 2026 → 12 August 2026.
-
logStart date: 27 July 2026 → 2 August 2026.
-
logLast day with fire: 12 August 2026 → 19 August 2026.
-
logStart date: 2 August 2026 → 27 July 2026.
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/idiofa-2026-07-3?v=2026-11-05A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire idiofa-2026-07-3.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-27 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 24 | 37 | 10.9 | 23 | 0 | 24 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-07-28 | 0 | 0 | 32.7 | 22.7 | 37 | 10.6 | 28.4 | 0 | 29.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-07-29 | 0 | 0 | 32.5 | 22.9 | 42 | 8.8 | 23 | 0 | 24.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-07-30 | 1 | 8 | 31.2 | 23.2 | 52 | 10.3 | 30.2 | 2.6 | 22 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-07-31 | 0 | 0 | 30.4 | 22.5 | 58 | 8 | 22 | 3.2 | 8.5 | bajo | 1 |
| 2026-08-01 | 0 | 0 | 32.5 | 21.4 | 41 | 10.3 | 22.3 | 0 | 6.7 | bajo | 1 |
| 2026-08-02 | 0 | 0 | 32.3 | 23 | 44 | 8.8 | 23.4 | 0.2 | 14.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-03 | 4 | 16 | 32.2 | 22.8 | 45 | 9.3 | 23.4 | 0.2 | 19.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-04 | 30 | 427 | 32.4 | 22.7 | 47 | 9.1 | 23.4 | 0 | 20 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-05 | 25 | 162 | 34.1 | 23 | 34 | 7.7 | 18 | 0 | 24.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-06 | 11 | 97 | 32.5 | 22.1 | 43 | 10.1 | 28.4 | 0.1 | 28.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-07 | 0 | 0 | 30.8 | 22.3 | 56 | 10.1 | 27.7 | 0.5 | 20.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-08 | 3 | 17 | 33.1 | 23.4 | 45 | 8.1 | 22 | 0.2 | 21.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-09 | 9 | 46 | 33.5 | 23.7 | 43 | 8.9 | 22.3 | 0.1 | 22.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-10 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 24 | 42 | 8.8 | 25.6 | 0 | 25.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-11 | 1 | 3 | 31.7 | 23.3 | 49 | 8.7 | 26.6 | 0.5 | 25.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-12 | 6 | 36 | 35 | 22.6 | 37 | 9.1 | 22 | 0 | 24 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-13 | 10 | 107 | 35.4 | 23.5 | 38 | 8 | 22.7 | 0.2 | 21.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-14 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 24.6 | 44 | 8.1 | 25.2 | 0.1 | 24.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-15 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 24 | 39 | 8.2 | 23.8 | 0 | 23.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-16 | 3 | 19 | 33.8 | 23.1 | 37 | 9.9 | 25.9 | 0 | 29.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-17 | 16 | 107 | 34.5 | 23.1 | 33 | 11.8 | 27.4 | 0 | 27.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-18 | 0 | 0 | 33.8 | 22.5 | 34 | 9.9 | 24.8 | 0 | 28 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-19 | 9 | 146 | 34.4 | 23.3 | 31 | 10.9 | 27 | 0 | 29.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-20 | 1 | 11 | 33.4 | 23.6 | 39 | 10.5 | 29.2 | 0.1 | 30.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-21 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 23.8 | 36 | 9.9 | 24.1 | 0 | 30.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-22 | 0 | 0 | 34.5 | 24.3 | 46 | 11.7 | 27 | 0.6 | 30.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-23 | 0 | 0 | 33.7 | 25.1 | 49 | 8.3 | 25.6 | 0.5 | 25.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-24 | 0 | 0 | 34.1 | 24 | 37 | 8.7 | 22.7 | 0 | 27.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-25 | 0 | 0 | 35.2 | 23.9 | 39 | 9.4 | 22.7 | 0.1 | 26.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-26 | 0 | 0 | 33.3 | 24.3 | 45 | 9.4 | 22.7 | 0 | 25.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-27 | 0 | 0 | 38.5 | 23.2 | 27 | 10.8 | 24.1 | 0 | 32.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-08-28 | 0 | 0 | 34.5 | 23.8 | 44 | 11.9 | 33.8 | 10.6 | 36.9 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 5,311ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 27 Jul 2026 – 19 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 27 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 129
- in a single hotspot: 48 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 86MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
27 Jul19 Aug
20 Aug 2026
How it evolved, day by day
4 Aug
9 Aug
13 Aug
19 Aug
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
35°high
30km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.6 mm on 28 Aug.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,330 ha in 2016, 2,166 ha in 2017, 1,993 ha in 2018, 2,170 ha in 2019, 2,441 ha in 2020, 2,283 ha in 2021, 2,056 ha in 2022, 2,679 ha in 2023, 902 ha in 2024, 2,011 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,574 ha that had burned before.
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 started5,212 ha reached on 30 Jul0.3 %
-
132 ha reached on 11 Aug0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Jul | 34.2 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 28 Jul | 32.7 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jul | 32.5 °C | 42 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Jul | 31.2 °C | 52 % | 30 km/h | 2.6 mm | High 22 |
| 31 Jul | 30.4 °C | 58 % | 22 km/h | 3.2 mm | Low 8 |
| 1 Aug | 32.5 °C | 41 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 2 Aug | 32.3 °C | 44 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 3 Aug | 32.2 °C | 45 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 4 Aug | 32.4 °C | 47 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 5 Aug | 34.1 °C | 34 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Aug | 32.5 °C | 43 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Aug | 30.8 °C | 56 % | 28 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 8 Aug | 33.1 °C | 45 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 21 |
| 9 Aug | 33.5 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Aug | 33.5 °C | 42 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 11 Aug | 31.7 °C | 49 % | 27 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Aug | 35.0 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Aug | 35.4 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Aug | 33.5 °C | 44 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 15 Aug | 33.2 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Aug | 33.8 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Aug | 34.5 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Aug | 33.8 °C | 34 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Aug | 34.4 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 39 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 46 % | 27 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 49 % | 26 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 25 Aug after | 35.2 °C | 39 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 45 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Aug after | 38.5 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 44 % | 34 km/h | 10.6 mm | High 37 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 20 Jul 2026
After · 26 Aug 2026
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 9 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 273 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 160: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak273 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10284 µg/m³
Optical depth2.25
WHO 15
31 Jul4 Aug8 Aug12 Aug
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 · 129Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Idiofa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 July 2026 to 19 August 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 August 2026 to 12 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,311 hectares (53.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Idiofa (5,212 ha, 0.3 %); Bulungu (132 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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 · 6 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 12 August 2026 → 19 August 2026.
- Start date: 2 August 2026 → 27 July 2026.
- Last day with fire: 19 August 2026 → 12 August 2026.
- Start date: 27 July 2026 → 2 August 2026.
- Last day with fire: 12 August 2026 → 19 August 2026.
- Start date: 2 August 2026 → 27 July 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 2026 to 12 August 2026. 129 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.