Kabongo fire, 15 August 2026 Kabongo, Malemba-Nkulu
The fire started on 15 August 2026 in Kabongo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,721 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 11th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 110 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 14,721ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 32days
- 15 Aug 2026 – 15 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 15 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 333
- in a single hotspot: 340 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 454MW
- 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
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,566 ha in 2016, 5,017 ha in 2017, 2,226 ha in 2018, 7,186 ha in 2019, 3,245 ha in 2020, 5,353 ha in 2021, 4,099 ha in 2022, 5,364 ha in 2023, 4,641 ha in 2024, 4,004 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,272 ha that had burned before.
- 4,228 ha Kabongo fire, July 2019 11,437 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,833 ha Kabongo fire, August 2025 5,065 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,752 ha Kabongo fire, June 2024 5,727 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 704 ha Kabongo fire, July 2021 7,709 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 started14,143 ha reached on 15 Aug0.7 %
-
692 ha reached on 16 Aug0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.82 hectares of built-up land and about 450 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Aug | 31.5 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Aug | 31.9 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Aug | 32.1 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Aug | 32.5 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Aug | 33.2 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Aug | 32.5 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Aug | 31.9 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 22 Aug | 32.9 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 23 Aug | 33.7 °C | 20 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 24 Aug | 33.6 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Aug | 33.8 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Aug | 33.0 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Aug | 34.5 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Aug | 33.4 °C | 26 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Aug | 33.3 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 30 Aug | 33.3 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 31 Aug | 33.7 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Sept | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 2 Sept | 34.5 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Sept | 35.8 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Sept | 34.3 °C | 27 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Sept | 33.5 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 6 Sept | 35.5 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 7 Sept | 33.4 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Sept | 34.7 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Sept | 33.4 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Sept | 33.3 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Sept | 33.5 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Sept | 33.2 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Sept | 33.7 °C | 31 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Sept | 33.0 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 15 Sept | 33.4 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 2.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 16 Sept after | 33.3 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 29 |
| 18 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Sept after | 33.7 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Sept after | 33.5 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 29 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Sept after | 35.3 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 368 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 197: 13 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 · 333Every 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 haKabongo2 July 2019 · 6 days · 9 km away
- 20,093 haMalemba-Nkulu26 July 2026 · 14 days · 18 km away
- 8,846 haKabongo31 July 2025 · 7 days · 29 km away
- 8,264 haKabongo28 July 2021 · 8 days · 30 km away
- 21,422 haKabongoAugust 2016 · 10 days · 39 km away
- 7,949 haKamina22 July 2021 · 9 days · 40 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 15 August 2026 to 15 September 2026 (32 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 August 2026 to 8 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,721 hectares (147.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kabongo (14,143 ha, 0.7 %); Malemba-Nkulu (692 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 August 2026 to 8 September 2026. 333 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.
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.