How long did the Kamina fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 August 2026 to 27 August 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 August 2026 to 23 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,659 hectares (76.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kamina (6,028 ha, 0.2 %); Lubudi (1,695 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.

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 · 2026-08-07 → 2026-08-27

Kamina fire, 7 August 2026 Kamina, Lubudi

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2026, 12:21 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2026 in Kamina, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,659 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 51th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 267 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kamina · 2026 Kamina · 2026 Lubudi · 2020

Burnt area: 7,659ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 21days; 7 Aug 2026 – 27 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; territories
Started on: 7 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 180; in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start: 45; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 80MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug27 Aug

Play back 28 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

7 Aug 13 Aug 16 Aug 19 Aug 20 Aug 22 Aug 25 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

50km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 325 ha in 2016, 778 ha in 2017, 742 ha in 2022, 25 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,589 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.8% of the area of London (77 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

Kamina where it started

6,028 ha reached on 7 Aug

0.2 %
Lubudi

1,695 ha reached on 7 Aug

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 area0.76 ha

Residents≈ 300

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.76 hectares of built-up land and about 300 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)
7 Aug	33.9 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
8 Aug	34.1 °C	22 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
9 Aug	34.0 °C	27 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
10 Aug	33.4 °C	25 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
11 Aug	33.1 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
12 Aug	34.3 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 Aug	34.1 °C	18 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
14 Aug	33.3 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
15 Aug	32.4 °C	18 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Aug	32.4 °C	15 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Aug	33.5 °C	12 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
18 Aug	34.3 °C	10 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
19 Aug	34.0 °C	11 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
20 Aug	33.9 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
21 Aug	34.0 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
22 Aug	35.1 °C	15 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
23 Aug	35.0 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
24 Aug	35.1 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
25 Aug	35.6 °C	21 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
26 Aug	35.1 °C	21 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
27 Aug	35.8 °C	21 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
28 Aug after	33.6 °C	24 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
29 Aug after	35.0 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
30 Aug after	35.9 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
31 Aug after	36.5 °C	12 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
1 Sept after	36.6 °C	16 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
2 Sept after	35.5 °C	19 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
3 Sept after	35.2 °C	22 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
4 Sept after	35.2 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.5 mm	High 35
5 Sept after	30.3 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.2 mm	High 34
6 Sept after	36.9 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Jul 2026

After · 3 Sept 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 20 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 128 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 77: 5.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak128 µg/m³

Days over the guideline26 days

PM10131 µg/m³

Optical depth1.77

WHO 15

56789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930

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 · 180Every 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 Kamina fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 August 2026 to 27 August 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 August 2026 to 23 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,659 hectares (76.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kamina (6,028 ha, 0.2 %); Lubudi (1,695 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 23 August 2026 → 27 August 2026.
26 October 2026 Start date: 11 August 2026 → 7 August 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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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 11 August 2026 to 23 August 2026. 180 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