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CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · –

Katako-Kombe fire, 29 May 2026 Katako-Kombe

Out · last detection 14 Jul 2026, 11:46 UTC

The fire started on 29 May 2026 in Katako-Kombe, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 47 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 108,157 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

Number 6 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.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Katako-Kombe · 2024Katako-Kombe · 2023Katako-Kombe · 2018Katako-Kombe · 2020

Burnt area
108,157ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
47days
29 May 2026 – 14 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
29 May
2026
Heat detections
4,397
in a single hotspot: 164 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
1.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 May14 Jul
14 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

29 May 2026 · 454 MW · 46 30 May 2026 · 337 MW · 59 31 May 2026 · 443 MW · 56 1 Jun 2026 · 179 MW · 25 2 Jun 2026 · 1,278 MW · 120 3 Jun 2026 · 527 MW · 53 4 Jun 2026 · 190 MW · 5 5 Jun 2026 · 1,295 MW · 109 6 Jun 2026 · 78 MW · 10 7 Jun 2026 · 109 MW · 13 9 Jun 2026 · 458 MW · 49 12 Jun 2026 · 1,034 MW · 111 13 Jun 2026 · 1,183 MW · 123 14 Jun 2026 · 1,341 MW · 106 15 Jun 2026 · 736 MW · 74 16 Jun 2026 · 4,297 MW · 314 18 Jun 2026 · 1,205 MW · 115 19 Jun 2026 · 653 MW · 108 20 Jun 2026 · 4,119 MW · 322 21 Jun 2026 · 2,598 MW · 212 22 Jun 2026 · 3,055 MW · 269 23 Jun 2026 · 853 MW · 79 24 Jun 2026 · 1,793 MW · 186 25 Jun 2026 · 4,135 MW · 349 26 Jun 2026 · 3,797 MW · 303 27 Jun 2026 · 5,385 MW · 331 28 Jun 2026 · 32 MW · 5 29 Jun 2026 · 690 MW · 75 30 Jun 2026 · 957 MW · 69 1 Jul 2026 · 966 MW · 79 2 Jul 2026 · 630 MW · 37 3 Jul 2026 · 1,441 MW · 125 4 Jul 2026 · 173 MW · 24 5 Jul 2026 · 1,042 MW · 125 6 Jul 2026 · 2,010 MW · 191 8 Jul 2026 · 931 MW · 84 9 Jul 2026 · 1 MW · 1 10 Jul 2026 · 118 MW · 24 13 Jul 2026 · 86 MW · 9 14 Jul 2026 · 17 MW · 2
29 May 6 Jun 18 Jun 27 Jun 4 Jul

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

Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (70 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

36°high
35km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 15 Jul.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 28,690 ha in 2016, 19,030 ha in 2017, 42,396 ha in 2018, 23,974 ha in 2019, 54,261 ha in 2020, 35,735 ha in 2021, 61,650 ha in 2022, 55,926 ha in 2023, 79,201 ha in 2024, 5,247 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 97,727 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 68% of the area of London (1,082 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. Katako-Kombe where it started
    108,896 ha reached on 29 May
    4.5 %

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 area90 ha
Residents≈ 2,400

Inside the perimeter there were about 90 hectares of built-up land and about 2,400 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)
29 May 33.8 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
30 May 33.1 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
31 May 34.3 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
1 Jun 33.6 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
2 Jun 33.9 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Jun 33.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Jun 32.5 °C 42 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Jun 32.6 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Jun 32.9 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
7 Jun 33.3 °C 46 % 32 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 16
8 Jun 32.1 °C 51 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 3
9 Jun 31.9 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Low 7
10 Jun 32.7 °C 46 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
11 Jun 32.2 °C 47 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
12 Jun 32.8 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
13 Jun 33.9 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Jun 34.7 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Jun 33.1 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Jun 30.3 °C 54 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
17 Jun 32.6 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
18 Jun 33.2 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Jun 32.1 °C 41 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 Jun 34.1 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Jun 34.9 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jun 34.0 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Jun 32.9 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Jun 32.8 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Jun 34.3 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Jun 34.0 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Jun 34.5 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jun 33.9 °C 30 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jun 33.8 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jun 35.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Jul 34.3 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Jul 33.5 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Jul 35.4 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Jul 35.0 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Jul 35.8 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Jul 36.0 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Jul 34.4 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Jul 33.8 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jul 33.5 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Jul 34.3 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Jul 33.3 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jul 34.2 °C 34 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Jul 35.4 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Jul 33.3 °C 42 % 23 km/h 1.0 mm High 30
15 Jul after 28.1 °C 67 % 24 km/h 2.8 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 May 2026
After · 21 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 27 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 236 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 135: 9.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak236 µg/m³
Days over the guideline44 days
PM10241 µg/m³
Optical depth2.50
3 Jun12 Jun21 Jun30 Jun9 Jul
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 · 4,397Every 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 Katako-Kombe fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 May 2026 to 14 July 2026 (47 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 June 2026 to 13 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 108,157 hectares (1,081.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Katako-Kombe (108,896 ha, 4.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 13 July 2026 → 14 July 2026.
  2. Start date: 5 June 2026 → 29 May 2026.
  3. Start date: 29 May 2026 → 5 June 2026.
  4. Start date: 5 June 2026 → 29 May 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 June 2026 to 13 July 2026. 4,397 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.