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Kabalo fire, 16 June 2026 Kabalo

Out · last detection 7 Jul 2026, 11:57 UTC

The fire started on 16 June 2026 in Kabalo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,792 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 76th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 262 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kabalo · 2022Kabalo · 2019Kabalo · 2017Kabalo · 2026

Burnt area
7,792ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
16 Jun 2026 – 7 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
16 Jun
2026
Heat detections
159
in a single hotspot: 288 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
203MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jun7 Jul
7 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

16 Jun 2026 · 10 MW · 2 18 Jun 2026 · 67 MW · 8 19 Jun 2026 · 29 MW · 4 21 Jun 2026 · 88 MW · 12 22 Jun 2026 · 81 MW · 8 24 Jun 2026 · 459 MW · 11 25 Jun 2026 · 39 MW · 6 26 Jun 2026 · 147 MW · 17 27 Jun 2026 · 497 MW · 28 28 Jun 2026 · 278 MW · 11 29 Jun 2026 · 1,192 MW · 31 30 Jun 2026 · 35 MW · 8 1 Jul 2026 · 4 MW · 1 6 Jul 2026 · 4 MW · 1 7 Jul 2026 · 111 MW · 11
16 Jun 21 Jun 25 Jun 28 Jun 29 Jun 1 Jul

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
40km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 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: 3,315 ha in 2016, 1,626 ha in 2017, 3,834 ha in 2018, 4,336 ha in 2019, 3,577 ha in 2020, 3,885 ha in 2021, 2,796 ha in 2022, 2,980 ha in 2023, 3,937 ha in 2024, 2,304 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,560 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.9% of the area of London (78 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Kabalo where it started
    7,848 ha reached on 16 Jun
    0.5 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
16 Jun 33.2 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Jun 33.8 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Jun 33.8 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jun 33.6 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Jun 33.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Jun 32.7 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jun 32.9 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jun 33.2 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jun 33.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jun 33.4 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Jun 34.0 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jun 33.0 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jun 33.0 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jun 33.2 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jun 34.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Jul 34.6 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Jul 34.3 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Jul 34.9 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Jul 34.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Jul 34.0 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jul 33.2 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Jul 32.7 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Jul after 33.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Jul after 34.0 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Jul after 34.8 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Jul after 34.6 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Jul after 33.0 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
13 Jul after 33.9 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Jul after 33.6 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Jul after 32.2 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul after 33.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Jul after 33.0 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jun 2026
After · 14 Jul 2026

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 2 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 88 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak88 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM1092 µg/m³
Optical depth0.98
20212223242526272829301234
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 · 159Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kabalo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 June 2026 to 7 July 2026 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 June 2026 to 1 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,792 hectares (77.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kabalo (7,848 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 1 July 2026 → 7 July 2026.
  2. Start date: 22 June 2026 → 16 June 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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 22 June 2026 to 1 July 2026. 159 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.