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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Kamina fire, June 2026 Kamina

Out · last detection 26 Jun 2026, 12:02 UTC

The fire started on 18 June 2026 in Kamina, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,505 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 25th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 169 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
10,505ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
18 Jun 2026 – 25 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
18 Jun
2026
Heat detections
179
in a single hotspot: 220 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
8.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jun25 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122232426

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
35km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,860 ha in 2016, 4,160 ha in 2017, 3,425 ha in 2018, 2,110 ha in 2019, 4,978 ha in 2020, 1,751 ha in 2021, 4,396 ha in 2022, 3,821 ha in 2023, 3,093 ha in 2024, 2,159 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,041 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kamina where it started
    10,568 ha reached on 12 Jun
    0.3 %

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 Jun 29.3 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Jun 28.6 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Jun 29.4 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Jun 29.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Jun 30.2 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jun 30.6 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Jun 30.0 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jun 29.8 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jun 29.9 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jun 29.3 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Jun 28.9 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jun 28.5 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jun 28.9 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jun 29.2 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jun after 29.9 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jun after 29.1 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jun after 29.2 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jun after 29.2 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jun after 30.2 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jul after 30.5 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Jul after 31.0 °C 21 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Jul after 30.8 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Jul after 29.8 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Jul after 29.5 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jul after 28.8 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Jul after 28.2 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jul after 29.3 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Jul after 29.7 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Jul after 30.7 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jun 2026
After · 2 Jul 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 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak49 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM1051 µg/m³
Optical depth0.69
16171819202122232425262728
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 · 179Every 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 Kamina fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 June 2026 and 25 June 2026: 8 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,505 hectares (105.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kamina (10,568 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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

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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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.