Kabongo fire, 29 July 2026 Kabongo
The fire started on 29 July 2026 in Kabongo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,087 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 96th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 367 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 6,087ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 29 Jul 2026 – 8 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 29 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 44
- in a single hotspot: 179 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 311MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,835 ha in 2016, 3,214 ha in 2017, 3,468 ha in 2018, 3,977 ha in 2019, 1,739 ha in 2020, 4,557 ha in 2021, 1,149 ha in 2022, 1,361 ha in 2023, 2,048 ha in 2024, 778 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,643 ha that had burned before.
- 4,551 ha Kabongo fire, July 2021 7,709 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,042 ha Kabongo fire, June 2024 5,727 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 640 ha Kabongo fire, June 2019 11,437 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 started6,136 ha reached on 1 Aug0.3 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Jul | 32.3 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Jul | 30.3 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 31 Jul | 32.5 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Aug | 31.1 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 2 Aug | 32.1 °C | 18 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Aug | 32.4 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Aug | 32.0 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Aug | 33.1 °C | 20 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Aug | 32.7 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Aug | 33.3 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Aug | 33.0 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Aug after | 34.0 °C | 21 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Aug after | 31.3 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Aug after | 33.5 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Aug after | 32.1 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 16 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Aug after | 33.0 °C | 17 % | 29 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.
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 8 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 161 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 112: 7.4 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 · 44Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,437 haKabongoJune 2019 · 17 days · 11 km away
- 8,846 haKabongo24 July 2025 · 21 days · 13 km away
- 14,721 haKabongo15 August 2026 · 32 days · 17 km away
- 8,264 haKabongo23 July 2021 · 13 days · 20 km away
- 21,422 haKabongoAugust 2016 · 12 days · 22 km away
- 20,093 haMalemba-Nkulu19 July 2026 · 28 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kabongo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2026 to 8 August 2026 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 August 2026 to 8 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,087 hectares (60.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kabongo (6,136 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 32 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 1 August 2026 → 29 July 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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 August 2026 to 8 August 2026. 44 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.