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Kahemba fire, 16 July 2026 Kahemba, Kasongo-Lunda

Out · last detection 1 Aug 2026, 12:29 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2026 in Kahemba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,827 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 138th largest in Kwango since 2016 (of 220 with a page). Number 392 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kasongo-Lunda · 2026Kasongo-Lunda · 2026Kahemba · 2026Kasongo-Lunda · 2020

Burnt area
5,827ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
16 Jul 2026 – 31 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
16 Jul
2026
Heat detections
123
in a single hotspot: 385 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
368MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul31 Jul
1 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

16 Jul 2026 · 5 MW · 2 17 Jul 2026 · 233 MW · 12 20 Jul 2026 · 55 MW · 7 21 Jul 2026 · 6 MW · 2 22 Jul 2026 · 1,624 MW · 37 23 Jul 2026 · 2,632 MW · 27 24 Jul 2026 · 217 MW · 13 25 Jul 2026 · 27 MW · 5 27 Jul 2026 · 37 MW · 1 28 Jul 2026 · 5 MW · 1 29 Jul 2026 · 18 MW · 2 30 Jul 2026 · 189 MW · 8 31 Jul 2026 · 89 MW · 5 1 Aug 2026 · 16 MW · 1
16 Jul 20 Jul 22 Jul 23 Jul 24 Jul 27 Jul 29 Jul 31 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

35°high
31km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 345 ha in 2016, 1,193 ha in 2017, 1,156 ha in 2018, 3,417 ha in 2019, 3,502 ha in 2020, 828 ha in 2021, 313 ha in 2023, 2,621 ha in 2024, 2,964 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,528 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.7% of the area of London (58 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

  1. Kahemba where it started
    3,713 ha reached on 16 Jul
    0.2 %
  2. Kasongo-Lunda
    2,160 ha reached on 17 Jul
    0.1 %

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 area0.43 ha
Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.43 hectares of built-up land and about 150 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)
16 Jul 32.0 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
17 Jul 31.9 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Jul 32.0 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Jul 32.4 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Jul 29.4 °C 41 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Jul 29.7 °C 47 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Jul 34.7 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jul 34.7 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jul 34.4 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul 32.8 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Jul 33.4 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jul 32.2 °C 34 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul 32.8 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul 32.1 °C 31 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Jul 27.9 °C 49 % 19 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
31 Jul 31.5 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Aug after 32.4 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Aug after 33.1 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug after 30.6 °C 38 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Aug after 31.2 °C 39 % 17 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
5 Aug after 32.2 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Aug after 34.2 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Aug after 32.6 °C 25 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug after 32.2 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug after 31.3 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Aug after 30.9 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2026
After · 7 Aug 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 19 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 197 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 142: 9.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak197 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10204 µg/m³
Optical depth1.68
1819202122232425262728
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 · 123Every 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 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 16 July 2026 to 31 July 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 July 2026 to 25 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,827 hectares (58.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kahemba (3,713 ha, 0.2 %); Kasongo-Lunda (2,160 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 31 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 25 July 2026 → 31 July 2026.
  2. Start date: 20 July 2026 → 16 July 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.

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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 20 July 2026 to 25 July 2026. 123 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.