Kabalo fire, 9 June 2026 Kabalo
The fire started on 9 June 2026 in Kabalo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 59,254 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 13 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Kabalo · 2018Kabalo · 2022Kabalo · 2016Kabalo · 2021
- Burnt area
- 59,254ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 32days
- 9 Jun 2026 – 10 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 9 Jun
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,974
- in a single hotspot: 441 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.2GW
- 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 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 30,244 ha in 2016, 18,587 ha in 2017, 23,594 ha in 2018, 26,165 ha in 2019, 25,790 ha in 2020, 26,452 ha in 2021, 31,354 ha in 2022, 21,116 ha in 2023, 17,878 ha in 2024, 18,060 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 57,446 ha that had burned before.
- 21,819 ha Kabalo fire, June 2018 67,841 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,897 ha Kabalo fire, June 2022 22,612 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,502 ha Kabalo fire, July 2016 8,022 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,107 ha Kabalo fire, July 2021 9,344 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,000 ha Kabalo fire, May 2017 11,772 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,205 ha Kabalo fire, June 2019 5,604 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,680 ha Kabalo fire, July 2025 7,001 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,893 ha Kabalo fire, July 2021 6,623 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
-
Kabalo where it started59,640 ha reached on 9 Jun4.1 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 13 hectares of built-up land and about 4,800 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Jun | 33.8 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Jun | 34.3 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 11 Jun | 35.0 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Jun | 34.2 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 13 Jun | 34.0 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 14 Jun | 34.5 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Jun | 34.4 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Jun | 33.8 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Jun | 34.7 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Jun | 34.6 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Jun | 34.1 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Jun | 34.6 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Jun | 33.6 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Jun | 33.6 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Jun | 33.9 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Jun | 33.9 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 25 Jun | 34.0 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Jun | 34.7 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 27 Jun | 33.8 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 28 Jun | 33.7 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Jun | 33.8 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 30 Jun | 34.8 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 1 Jul | 35.1 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 2 Jul | 34.8 °C | 24 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 3 Jul | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 4 Jul | 35.1 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Jul | 34.4 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Jul | 33.7 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Jul | 33.5 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 Jul | 34.5 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Jul | 34.8 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 10 Jul | 35.4 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Jul after | 35.0 °C | 25 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 12 Jul after | 33.0 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Jul after | 34.7 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Jul after | 34.6 °C | 30 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Jul after | 33.1 °C | 34 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Jul after | 33.8 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 17 Jul after | 33.7 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Jul after | 34.4 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Jul after | 32.8 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Jul after | 33.5 °C | 26 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
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 12 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 103 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 72: 4.8 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 · 1,974Every 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 Kabalo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 June 2026 to 10 July 2026 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 June 2026 to 9 July 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 59,254 hectares (592.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kabalo (59,640 ha, 4.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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: 9 July 2026 → 10 July 2026.
- Start date: 12 June 2026 → 9 June 2026.
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; 6 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 June 2026 to 9 July 2026. 1,974 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.