Kabongo fire, May 2026 Kabongo
The fire started on 23 May 2026 in Kabongo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,138 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 60th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 293 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 7,138ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 23 May 2026 – 25 May 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 23 May
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 111
- in a single hotspot: 91 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 664MW
- 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 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,448 ha in 2016, 3,604 ha in 2017, 2,253 ha in 2018, 3,726 ha in 2019, 2,841 ha in 2020, 1,566 ha in 2021, 379 ha in 2022, 3,269 ha in 2023, 2,969 ha in 2024, 44 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,169 ha that had burned before.
- 2,927 ha Kabongo fire, July 2017 6,499 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,841 ha Kabongo fire, July 2020 5,423 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,311 ha Kabongo fire, July 2023 5,354 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
-
Kabongo where it started7,176 ha reached on 22 May0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 May | 31.8 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 24 May | 32.3 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 25 May | 32.0 °C | 34 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 26 May after | 31.8 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 27 May after | 31.5 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 May after | 31.0 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 May after | 31.8 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 30 May after | 32.1 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 31 May after | 31.8 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 1 Jun after | 31.4 °C | 35 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 2 Jun after | 32.1 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Jun after | 32.1 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Jun after | 32.3 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
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 25 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 111Every 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 Kabongo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 May 2026 and 25 May 2026: 3 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 7,138 hectares (71.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kabongo (7,176 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class 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
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 111 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.
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.