How long did the Kahemba fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 June 2026 to 10 July 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 June 2026 to 10 July 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,681 hectares (56.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Kahemba (5,726 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · 2026-06-22 → 2026-07-10

Kahemba fire, 22 June 2026 Kahemba

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2026, 12:42 UTC

The fire started on 22 June 2026 in Kahemba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,681 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 148th largest in Kwango since 2016 (of 220 with a page). Number 413 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kahemba · 2026 Kahemba · 2026 Kahemba · 2026 Kahemba · 2026

Burnt area: 5,681ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 22 Jun 2026 – 10 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 22 Jun; 2026
Heat detections: 140; in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 108MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jun10 Jul

Play back 10 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

22 Jun 25 Jun 30 Jun 4 Jul 6 Jul 7 Jul 10 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

42km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,369 ha in 2016, 746 ha in 2017, 3,357 ha in 2018, 2,330 ha in 2019, 1,699 ha in 2020, 1,958 ha in 2021, 1,937 ha in 2022, 1,940 ha in 2023, 1,396 ha in 2024, 1,374 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,292 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.6% of the area of London (57 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Kahemba where it started

5,726 ha reached on 22 Jun

0.3 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area2.1 ha

Residents≈ 800

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.1 hectares of built-up land and about 800 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)
22 Jun	29.6 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
23 Jun	28.8 °C	36 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	High 22
24 Jun	29.9 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
25 Jun	29.9 °C	23 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
26 Jun	29.0 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
27 Jun	30.1 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
28 Jun	27.9 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
29 Jun	28.9 °C	29 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
30 Jun	30.2 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Jul	30.4 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
2 Jul	29.8 °C	29 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
3 Jul	30.3 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
4 Jul	31.4 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Jul	30.7 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
6 Jul	30.5 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Jul	30.1 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Jul	28.9 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
9 Jul	29.6 °C	26 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
10 Jul	29.8 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Jul after	29.3 °C	28 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Jul after	30.6 °C	22 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
13 Jul after	31.1 °C	18 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
14 Jul after	31.0 °C	20 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
15 Jul after	30.3 °C	27 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Jul after	28.9 °C	22 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
17 Jul after	28.7 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Jul after	29.0 °C	19 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
19 Jul after	29.1 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
20 Jul after	27.6 °C	36 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 15 Jun 2026

After · 17 Jul 2026

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 9 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 104 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 69: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak104 µg/m³

Days over the guideline17 days

PM10108 µg/m³

Optical depth1.05

WHO 15

2728293012345678910111213

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 · 140Every 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kahemba fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 June 2026 to 10 July 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 June 2026 to 10 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,681 hectares (56.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Kahemba (5,726 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Start date: 29 June 2026 → 22 June 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 29 June 2026 to 10 July 2026. 140 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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