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Kongolo fire, 24 July 2026 Kongolo

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2026, 11:08 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2026 in Kongolo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 40 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,206 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 56th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 205 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
9,206ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
40days
24 Jul 2026 – 1 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
24 Jul
2026
Heat detections
444
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2426272930311256789101112131415161719212223242526272829311

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
48km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 4 Sept.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 567 ha in 2017, 1,353 ha in 2018, 521 ha in 2019, 627 ha in 2020, 158 ha in 2021, 1,272 ha in 2022, 1,245 ha in 2023, 3,176 ha in 2024, 2,999 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,794 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kongolo where it started
    9,270 ha reached on 24 Jul
    0.7 %

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)
24 Jul 34.8 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jul 35.2 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jul 34.3 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul 34.3 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Jul 34.1 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Jul 32.3 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Jul 32.0 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
31 Jul 35.2 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Aug 34.2 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Aug 34.0 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Aug 34.2 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug 34.8 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug 34.6 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Aug 34.9 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug 34.4 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 33.4 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug 33.9 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug 35.2 °C 25 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Aug 33.8 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
12 Aug 33.6 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 35.3 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug 35.2 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Aug 34.6 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Aug 34.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug 34.9 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug 35.1 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Aug 36.2 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Aug 34.4 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug 34.7 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug 35.9 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Aug 34.3 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Aug 35.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug 34.9 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Aug 36.3 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Aug 37.5 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Aug 37.1 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug 36.5 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Aug 35.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Aug 36.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept 37.6 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept after 37.9 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Sept after 36.3 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Sept after 35.6 °C 30 % 31 km/h 1.4 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2026
After · 8 Sept 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 3 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 151 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 122: 8.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak151 µg/m³
Days over the guideline45 days
PM10156 µg/m³
Optical depth1.71
22232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234
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 · 444Every 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 Kongolo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 July 2026 and 1 September 2026: 40 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 9,206 hectares (92.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kongolo (9,270 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.