Kimvula fire, June 2026 Kimvula, Madimba
The fire started on 10 June 2026 in Kimvula, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,310 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Kongo-Central since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 133 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 12,310ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 10 Jun 2026 – 17 Jun 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 10 Jun
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 186
- in a single hotspot: 163 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 400MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,901 ha in 2016, 1,178 ha in 2018, 1,382 ha in 2020, 552 ha in 2023, 1,520 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,441 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
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.
What happened to each town
-
Kimvula where it started11,846 ha reached on 10 Jun3.1 %
-
544 ha reached on 13 Jun0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Jun | 30.6 °C | 43 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 11 Jun | 28.4 °C | 55 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 12 Jun | 29.2 °C | 45 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 13 Jun | 29.6 °C | 44 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 14 Jun | 30.6 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Jun | 27.9 °C | 54 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 16 Jun | 27.7 °C | 56 % | 25 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 17 Jun | 28.8 °C | 52 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 18 Jun after | 26.1 °C | 64 % | 23 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 19 Jun after | 28.2 °C | 57 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 20 Jun after | 30.6 °C | 49 % | 22 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 21 Jun after | 29.0 °C | 59 % | 28 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 22 Jun after | 27.3 °C | 58 % | 28 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 23 Jun after | 28.5 °C | 55 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 24 Jun after | 29.0 °C | 52 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 25 Jun after | 29.4 °C | 49 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 26 Jun after | 26.0 °C | 58 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 27 Jun after | 29.9 °C | 40 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Jun after | 28.5 °C | 49 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 29 Jun after | 28.9 °C | 48 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 30 Jun after | 27.5 °C | 53 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 1 Jul after | 26.7 °C | 57 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 2 Jul after | 26.3 °C | 59 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
Before and after, from space
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 18 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.3 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)
Detections table · 186Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kimvula fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 June 2026 and 17 June 2026: 8 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 12,310 hectares (123.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kimvula (11,846 ha, 3.1 %); Madimba (544 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- 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
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 186 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.
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.