How long did the Kabongo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2025 and 4 September 2025: 16 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 5,065 hectares (50.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Kabongo (5,104 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.

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 · 2025-08-20 → 2025-09-04

Kabongo fire, August 2025 Kabongo

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2025, 23:12 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2025 in Kabongo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,065 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 166th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 117 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.

Burnt area: 5,065ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 20 Aug 2025 – 4 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 20 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 150; in a single hotspot: 228 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 4.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 5 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2023252628303112345

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

40km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 11 Sept.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 907 ha in 2016, 1,465 ha in 2017, 981 ha in 2018, 3,363 ha in 2019, 148 ha in 2020, 1,716 ha in 2021, 883 ha in 2022, 2,324 ha in 2023, 1,852 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,914 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Kabongo where it started

5,104 ha reached on 18 Aug

0.2 %

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)
20 Aug	33.0 °C	17 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 Aug	33.1 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
22 Aug	33.9 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
23 Aug	34.3 °C	17 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
24 Aug	34.6 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
25 Aug	34.4 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
26 Aug	34.1 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
27 Aug	32.5 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
28 Aug	34.1 °C	18 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
29 Aug	36.4 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
30 Aug	35.7 °C	11 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
31 Aug	34.7 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
1 Sept	35.0 °C	16 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
2 Sept	35.1 °C	13 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
3 Sept	34.8 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
4 Sept	34.8 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
5 Sept after	35.8 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
6 Sept after	36.0 °C	16 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
7 Sept after	35.4 °C	18 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
8 Sept after	35.7 °C	15 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Sept after	33.6 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
10 Sept after	34.5 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Sept after	31.8 °C	33 %	25 km/h	3.6 mm	Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Aug 2025

After · 11 Sept 2025

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 23 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 173 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 89: 5.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak173 µg/m³

Days over the guideline21 days

PM10179 µg/m³

Optical depth1.64

WHO 15

18192021222324252627282930311234567

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 · 150Every 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 Kabongo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 August 2025 and 4 September 2025: 16 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 5,065 hectares (50.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Kabongo (5,104 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
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