The fire started on 30 July 2026 in Kasongo-Lunda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 34,684 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 29 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 515.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Union of 3 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
30 Jul 2026 to 28 Aug 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 291 MW.
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
Total radiative power on 3 August 2026; hotspots that day: 22.
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
High of 33.6 °C and minimum humidity of 18% on 18 August 2026; gusts of 32 km/h on 15 August 2026.
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-30 | 1 | 8 | 26.2 | 19.6 | 50 | 9.5 | 19.8 | 0.4 | 22.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-07-31 | 8 | 92 | 29.3 | 18.9 | 42 | 13 | 27.7 | 0 | 23.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-01 | 21 | 139 | 30.6 | 18.4 | 30 | 8 | 23.8 | 0 | 28.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-02 | 2 | 10 | 31.5 | 16.6 | 26 | 10 | 23.8 | 0 | 34.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-03 | 22 | 1,477 | 28.8 | 17.4 | 39 | 9.6 | 17.3 | 0.1 | 25.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-04 | 1 | 4 | 29 | 18.3 | 42 | 7.7 | 19.8 | 0.2 | 24 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-05 | 13 | 80 | 30.2 | 17.6 | 36 | 9 | 22.7 | 0 | 25.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-06 | 23 | 162 | 32.5 | 16.3 | 19 | 10.7 | 22.7 | 0 | 40 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-07 | 15 | 149 | 30.6 | 15.6 | 28 | 10.3 | 15.8 | 0 | 32.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-08 | 17 | 189 | 30.3 | 17.4 | 38 | 9.8 | 23 | 0 | 28 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-09 | 4 | 43 | 29.4 | 18.7 | 47 | 11.3 | 24.5 | 0.5 | 23.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-10 | 63 | 515 | 28.8 | 17.6 | 43 | 10.7 | 25.2 | 0 | 26.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-11 | 38 | 411 | 28.6 | 17.9 | 49 | 10.5 | 22.7 | 0.1 | 23.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-12 | 88 | 888 | 32.8 | 18.5 | 23 | 10.2 | 25.2 | 0 | 36.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-13 | 78 | 908 | 29.6 | 20.7 | 44 | 9.7 | 25.6 | 0.7 | 32.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-14 | 1 | 9 | 32.6 | 19 | 32 | 9.4 | 24.5 | 0 | 27.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-15 | 37 | 285 | 32.2 | 19.2 | 30 | 11.2 | 31.7 | 0 | 35.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-16 | 35 | 328 | 32.1 | 19.2 | 26 | 9 | 27.7 | 0 | 38.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-17 | 126 | 1,045 | 33.5 | 17.4 | 18 | 10.2 | 28.4 | 0 | 48.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-18 | 0 | 0 | 33.6 | 15.9 | 18 | 9.8 | 28.4 | 0 | 49.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-19 | 87 | 851 | 32.7 | 15 | 19 | 8.8 | 22.3 | 0 | 44.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-20 | 29 | 317 | 32 | 15.8 | 21 | 9.8 | 19.1 | 0 | 41.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-21 | 33 | 334 | 30 | 16.7 | 33 | 9.8 | 21.6 | 0 | 30.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-22 | 57 | 604 | 29.8 | 18.6 | 44 | 9.5 | 22.7 | 0 | 25.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-23 | 24 | 267 | 32.2 | 20.2 | 34 | 10.8 | 23 | 0.1 | 31.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-24 | 30 | 414 | 32.3 | 19.3 | 34 | 9.7 | 19.8 | 0 | 27.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-25 | 9 | 89 | 28.6 | 19.3 | 55 | 7.9 | 27.7 | 5.2 | 24.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-26 | 1 | 5 | 29.3 | 19.2 | 52 | 9.5 | 31.3 | 1.1 | 6.2 | bajo | 1 |
| 2026-08-27 | 1 | 2 | 33.1 | 20.7 | 37 | 11.4 | 28.4 | 0.1 | 22 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-08-28 | 2 | 16 | 29.7 | 19.8 | 50 | 10.1 | 23.8 | 1 | 20.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-08-29 | 0 | 0 | 27.9 | 19.1 | 59 | 9.6 | 32.4 | 6 | 10.7 | bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.0 mm on 29 Aug.
79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,311 ha in 2016, 5,856 ha in 2017, 3,374 ha in 2018, 1 ha in 2019, 16,313 ha in 2020, 9,253 ha in 2021, 4,556 ha in 2022, 6,887 ha in 2023, 6,479 ha in 2024, 8,812 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 27,391 ha that had burned before.
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
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.
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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 25 % of the area in Democratic Republic of the Congo
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Jul | 26.2 °C | 50 % | 20 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 22 |
| 31 Jul | 29.3 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 1 Aug | 30.6 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Aug | 31.5 °C | 26 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 3 Aug | 28.8 °C | 39 % | 17 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 4 Aug | 29.0 °C | 42 % | 20 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Aug | 30.2 °C | 36 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Aug | 32.5 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Aug | 30.6 °C | 28 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Aug | 30.3 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Aug | 29.4 °C | 47 % | 24 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Aug | 28.8 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 11 Aug | 28.6 °C | 49 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Aug | 32.8 °C | 23 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Aug | 29.6 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Aug | 32.6 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 15 Aug | 32.2 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Aug | 32.1 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 17 Aug | 33.5 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 18 Aug | 33.6 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 19 Aug | 32.7 °C | 19 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Aug | 32.0 °C | 21 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Aug | 30.0 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Aug | 29.8 °C | 44 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Aug | 32.2 °C | 34 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Aug | 32.3 °C | 34 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 25 Aug | 28.6 °C | 55 % | 28 km/h | 5.2 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Aug | 29.3 °C | 52 % | 31 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 6 |
| 27 Aug | 33.1 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Aug | 29.7 °C | 50 % | 24 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 29 Aug after | 27.9 °C | 59 % | 32 km/h | 6.0 mm | Low 11 |
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
On 19 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 233 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 132: 8.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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)
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
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
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
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.