How long did the Idiofa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2026 and 13 August 2026: 11 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 10,521 hectares (105.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Idiofa (10,590 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2026-08-03 → 2026-08-13

Idiofa fire, 3 August 2026 Idiofa

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2026, 12:06 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2026 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,521 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 66th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 168 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area: 10,521ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 3 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 3 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 190; in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.8GW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

56891213

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

32%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 22 Aug.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,269 ha in 2016, 495 ha in 2017, 609 ha in 2018, 769 ha in 2019, 6,490 ha in 2020, 838 ha in 2022, 1,700 ha in 2023, 3,684 ha in 2024, 951 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,539 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Idiofa where it started

10,590 ha reached on 5 Aug

0.6 %

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)
3 Aug	32.8 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
4 Aug	32.5 °C	46 %	26 km/h	0.3 mm	High 24
5 Aug	34.2 °C	32 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Aug	32.6 °C	38 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
7 Aug	30.5 °C	55 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 23
8 Aug	33.0 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.5 mm	High 22
9 Aug	32.7 °C	46 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
10 Aug	33.2 °C	44 %	24 km/h	0.2 mm	High 23
11 Aug	31.5 °C	50 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 23
12 Aug	34.2 °C	39 %	22 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
13 Aug	34.9 °C	40 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
14 Aug after	33.4 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
15 Aug after	33.6 °C	37 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
16 Aug after	34.0 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Aug after	34.9 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
18 Aug after	33.9 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Aug after	34.3 °C	31 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
20 Aug after	33.0 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
21 Aug after	33.6 °C	36 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Aug after	33.7 °C	47 %	28 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 27 Jul 2026

After · 20 Aug 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 9 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 304 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 193: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak304 µg/m³

Days over the guideline16 days

PM10318 µg/m³

Optical depth2.13

WHO 15

12345678910111213141516

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 · 190Every 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

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Idiofa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2026 and 13 August 2026: 11 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 10,521 hectares (105.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Idiofa (10,590 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned