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Kabongo fire, 12 August 2026 Kabongo, Manono

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2026, 12:29 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2026 in Kabongo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,816 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 76 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
18,816ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
12 Aug 2026 – 2 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
12 Aug
2026
Heat detections
557
in a single hotspot: 309 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
731MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

2 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

12 Aug 2026 · 4 MW · 1 13 Aug 2026 · 10 MW · 1 14 Aug 2026 · 124 MW · 16 15 Aug 2026 · 9 MW · 2 16 Aug 2026 · 7 MW · 2 17 Aug 2026 · 271 MW · 13 18 Aug 2026 · 7 MW · 3 19 Aug 2026 · 144 MW · 25 20 Aug 2026 · 930 MW · 60 21 Aug 2026 · 152 MW · 20 22 Aug 2026 · 72 MW · 10 23 Aug 2026 · 30 MW · 8 24 Aug 2026 · 2,070 MW · 84 25 Aug 2026 · 2,066 MW · 61 26 Aug 2026 · 47 MW · 7 27 Aug 2026 · 5,093 MW · 92 28 Aug 2026 · 1,083 MW · 33 29 Aug 2026 · 76 MW · 13 30 Aug 2026 · 2 MW · 1 31 Aug 2026 · 108 MW · 5 1 Sept 2026 · 542 MW · 23 2 Sept 2026 · 3,239 MW · 77
12 Aug 16 Aug 20 Aug 24 Aug 27 Aug 28 Aug 1 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

37°high
47km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,462 ha in 2016, 5,965 ha in 2017, 2,319 ha in 2018, 7,198 ha in 2019, 7,305 ha in 2020, 6,216 ha in 2021, 7,607 ha in 2022, 3,173 ha in 2023, 3,577 ha in 2024, 6,900 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,159 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kabongo where it started
    16,911 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.8 %
  2. Manono
    2,025 ha reached on 13 Aug
    0.1 %

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)
12 Aug 33.5 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug 34.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Aug 33.7 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Aug 33.3 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Aug 33.7 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug 33.9 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug 34.4 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug 35.2 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug 34.2 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug 33.5 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Aug 34.7 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug 34.2 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Aug 34.9 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 35.3 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Aug 34.6 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug 36.5 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Aug 35.7 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug 35.5 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Aug 34.7 °C 21 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Aug 35.6 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Sept 36.8 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Sept 36.2 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Sept after 36.8 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept after 35.7 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept after 35.8 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Sept after 36.6 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept after 35.1 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Sept after 36.2 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Sept after 35.0 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Sept after 34.7 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Sept after 35.5 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Sept after 34.8 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2026
After · 9 Sept 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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 320 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 181: 12 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak320 µg/m³
Days over the guideline27 days
PM10328 µg/m³
Optical depth1.46
1011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345
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 · 557Every 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 Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kabongo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 August 2026 to 2 September 2026 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 August 2026 to 31 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,816 hectares (188.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kabongo (16,911 ha, 0.8 %); Manono (2,025 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 47 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 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

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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.