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Kasongo fire, June 2026 Kasongo

Out · last detection 25 Jun 2026, 23:25 UTC

The fire started on 6 June 2026 in Kasongo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,358 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Maniema since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 174 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
10,358ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
6 Jun 2026 – 24 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
6 Jun
2026
Heat detections
207
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jun24 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

67911121314151617182021222425

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
36km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,017 ha in 2016, 2,776 ha in 2017, 6,372 ha in 2018, 3,011 ha in 2019, 5,021 ha in 2020, 3,481 ha in 2021, 3,977 ha in 2022, 4,076 ha in 2023, 4,029 ha in 2024, 2,574 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,853 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kasongo where it started
    10,431 ha reached on 6 Jun
    0.6 %

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)
6 Jun 32.9 °C 49 % 23 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 15
7 Jun 33.6 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 17
8 Jun 33.3 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
9 Jun 34.1 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 Jun 33.3 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Jun 33.5 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Jun 34.1 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Jun 34.5 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jun 34.9 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Jun 33.8 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Jun 32.1 °C 47 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
17 Jun 33.7 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Jun 34.1 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Jun 32.1 °C 39 % 17 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
20 Jun 35.1 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Jun 34.9 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Jun 34.5 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Jun 33.9 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jun 33.5 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jun after 34.3 °C 26 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Jun after 34.7 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jun after 34.6 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Jun after 33.8 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jun after 34.4 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Jun after 35.9 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Jul after 34.6 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Jul after 33.7 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Jul after 35.6 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Jul after 35.7 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Jul after 35.7 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Jul after 35.2 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Jul after 34.9 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Jul after 33.7 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Jul after 34.8 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Jul after 34.4 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Jul after 33.5 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 May 2026
After · 1 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 23 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 103 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 59: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak103 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM10106 µg/m³
Optical depth0.88
456789101112131415161718192021222324252627
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 · 207Every 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 Kasongo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 June 2026 and 24 June 2026: 19 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 10,358 hectares (103.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kasongo (10,431 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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.