How long did the Kabambare fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 August 2026 to 26 September 2026 (49 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 August 2026 to 21 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 46,773 hectares (467.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kabambare (46,536 ha, 2.4 %); Fizi (555 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · 2026-08-09 → 2026-09-26

Kabambare fire, 9 August 2026 Kabambare, Fizi

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2026, 11:40 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2026 in Kabambare, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 49 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 46,773 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the largest fire in Maniema since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 20 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kabambare · 2016 Kabambare · 2017 Kabambare · 2026

Burnt area: 46,773ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 49days; 9 Aug 2026 – 26 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; territories
Started on: 9 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 2,578; in a single hotspot: 194 MW
Danger at start: 36; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 739MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug26 Sept

Play back 26 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

9 Aug 17 Aug 26 Aug 27 Aug 2 Sept 9 Sept 16 Sept 24 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high

48km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.3 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,622 ha in 2016, 304 ha in 2017, 5,809 ha in 2018, 4,482 ha in 2019, 8,700 ha in 2020, 6,512 ha in 2021, 14,643 ha in 2022, 8,384 ha in 2023, 4,256 ha in 2024, 13,849 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 30,266 ha that had burned before.

6,124 ha Kabambare fire, August 2016 5,084 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 30% of the area of London (468 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

Kabambare where it started

46,536 ha reached on 9 Aug

2.4 %
Fizi

555 ha reached on 14 Aug

0.0 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area3.0 ha

Residents≈ 900

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.0 hectares of built-up land and about 900 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 Aug	34.7 °C	26 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Aug	36.0 °C	23 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
11 Aug	33.5 °C	29 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
12 Aug	34.0 °C	28 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
13 Aug	34.8 °C	17 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
14 Aug	34.6 °C	22 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
15 Aug	34.0 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
16 Aug	33.4 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
17 Aug	35.1 °C	27 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
18 Aug	35.0 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
19 Aug	35.1 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
20 Aug	32.0 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
21 Aug	34.5 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Aug	36.0 °C	25 %	21 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
23 Aug	34.2 °C	31 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Aug	34.9 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
25 Aug	35.8 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
26 Aug	36.6 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
27 Aug	36.4 °C	19 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
28 Aug	37.1 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
29 Aug	35.5 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
30 Aug	35.9 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
31 Aug	36.3 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
1 Sept	36.4 °C	20 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
2 Sept	37.5 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
3 Sept	35.7 °C	23 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
4 Sept	31.8 °C	43 %	28 km/h	3.4 mm	Low 9
5 Sept	35.1 °C	31 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
6 Sept	36.2 °C	23 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
7 Sept	35.6 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
8 Sept	35.7 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Sept	34.5 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Sept	34.7 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Sept	35.4 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
12 Sept	32.9 °C	37 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Sept	35.8 °C	28 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Sept	35.5 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
15 Sept	36.4 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Sept	31.5 °C	46 %	35 km/h	2.0 mm	Moderate 12
17 Sept	32.7 °C	35 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
18 Sept	35.5 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Sept	34.8 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
20 Sept	36.7 °C	23 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
21 Sept	30.9 °C	51 %	26 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 19
22 Sept	30.9 °C	50 %	20 km/h	13.4 mm	Very low 3
23 Sept	31.2 °C	53 %	27 km/h	3.4 mm	Very low 4
24 Sept	34.0 °C	42 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
25 Sept	34.4 °C	33 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
26 Sept	35.1 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
27 Sept after	29.3 °C	67 %	26 km/h	8.3 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Aug 2026

After · 3 Oct 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 5 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 288 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 169: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak288 µg/m³

Days over the guideline54 days

PM10297 µg/m³

Optical depth3.00

WHO 15

789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829

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 · 2,578Every 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kabambare fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 August 2026 to 26 September 2026 (49 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 August 2026 to 21 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 46,773 hectares (467.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kabambare (46,536 ha, 2.4 %); Fizi (555 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 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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What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 August 2026 to 21 September 2026. 2,578 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.

Where it burned