How long did the Kimvula fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 August 2025 and 13 September 2025: 26 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 5,814 hectares (58.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kimvula (3,281 ha, 0.8 %); Popokabaka (2,572 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2025-08-19 → 2025-09-13

Kimvula fire, 19 August 2025 Kimvula, Popokabaka

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2025, 00:02 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2025 in Kimvula, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,814 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Kongo-Central since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 93 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.

Burnt area: 5,814ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 19 Aug 2025 – 13 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; territories
Started on: 19 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 305; in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 14 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526272930123467891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

37km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 14 Sept.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,210 ha in 2017, 3,360 ha in 2018, 259 ha in 2019, 2,404 ha in 2020, 3,370 ha in 2021, 3,147 ha in 2022, 3,464 ha in 2023, 3,429 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,291 ha that had burned before.

772 ha Kimvula fire, August 2017 5,279 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Kimvula where it started

3,281 ha reached on 12 Aug

0.8 %
Popokabaka

2,572 ha reached on 17 Aug

0.4 %

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)
19 Aug	33.2 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
20 Aug	32.0 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
21 Aug	30.8 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
22 Aug	29.7 °C	40 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
23 Aug	30.6 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
24 Aug	30.8 °C	38 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Aug	30.4 °C	42 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
26 Aug	33.6 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
27 Aug	33.8 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
28 Aug	32.4 °C	39 %	25 km/h	1.0 mm	High 23
29 Aug	34.1 °C	33 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
30 Aug	31.9 °C	41 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Aug	29.2 °C	47 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
1 Sept	31.6 °C	44 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
2 Sept	33.3 °C	36 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Sept	32.3 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
4 Sept	29.9 °C	45 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	High 29
5 Sept	32.2 °C	43 %	25 km/h	0.6 mm	High 25
6 Sept	31.3 °C	50 %	32 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 20
7 Sept	32.0 °C	43 %	24 km/h	0.3 mm	High 24
8 Sept	33.1 °C	43 %	27 km/h	0.9 mm	High 23
9 Sept	30.0 °C	46 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
10 Sept	32.0 °C	45 %	27 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 17
11 Sept	31.0 °C	50 %	30 km/h	3.3 mm	Low 8
12 Sept	32.1 °C	48 %	23 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 17
13 Sept	31.3 °C	49 %	27 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 14
14 Sept after	32.5 °C	40 %	28 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Aug 2025

After · 20 Sept 2025

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 11 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 127 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 76: 5.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak127 µg/m³

Days over the guideline31 days

PM10129 µg/m³

Optical depth1.89

WHO 15

17181920212223242526272829303112345678910111213141516

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 · 305Every 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 Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kimvula fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 August 2025 and 13 September 2025: 26 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 5,814 hectares (58.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kimvula (3,281 ha, 0.8 %); Popokabaka (2,572 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned