Lisala fire, 20 February 2026 Lisala, Businga
The fire started on 20 February 2026 in Lisala, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,279 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 8th largest in Mongala since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 43 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
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Suggestions: Lisala · 2026Lisala · 2026
- Burnt area
- 27,279ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 20 Feb 2026 – 14 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 20 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 608
- in a single hotspot: 77 MW
- Danger at start
- 19
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 317MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 19.8 mm on 15 Mar.
This area had burned before
64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,360 ha in 2016, 5,255 ha in 2017, 2,824 ha in 2018, 1,665 ha in 2020, 6,650 ha in 2021, 3,677 ha in 2022, 7,544 ha in 2024, 4,669 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,528 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
-
Lisala where it started26,818 ha reached on 15 Feb1.7 %
-
649 ha reached on 15 Feb0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Feb | 34.2 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 16 Feb | 34.5 °C | 40 % | 30 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 17 Feb | 34.8 °C | 44 % | 31 km/h | 9.1 mm | Very low 4 |
| 18 Feb | 26.4 °C | 69 % | 23 km/h | 6.7 mm | Very low 0 |
| 19 Feb | 32.0 °C | 42 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 20 Feb | 33.9 °C | 38 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 21 Feb | 33.5 °C | 45 % | 24 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 22 Feb | 33.7 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 10 |
| 23 Feb | 31.4 °C | 50 % | 36 km/h | 9.2 mm | Very low 1 |
| 24 Feb | 32.5 °C | 49 % | 24 km/h | 0.8 mm | Very low 4 |
| 25 Feb | 33.4 °C | 46 % | 20 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 26 Feb | 34.5 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 27 Feb | 34.3 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 28 Feb | 33.7 °C | 35 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 1 Mar | 34.4 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 2 Mar | 32.9 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 3 Mar | 30.0 °C | 56 % | 31 km/h | 3.5 mm | Very low 2 |
| 4 Mar | 32.4 °C | 39 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 5 Mar | 33.3 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 6 Mar | 35.0 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 7 Mar | 36.1 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 8 Mar | 36.9 °C | 27 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 9 Mar | 37.0 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Mar | 32.4 °C | 48 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 11 Mar | 34.4 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 12 Mar | 34.2 °C | 42 % | 25 km/h | 9.8 mm | Very low 3 |
| 13 Mar | 34.3 °C | 44 % | 25 km/h | 6.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 14 Mar | 36.6 °C | 34 % | 19 km/h | 2.6 mm | Low 6 |
| 15 Mar after | 26.2 °C | 72 % | 22 km/h | 19.8 mm | Very low 0 |
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 6 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 64: 4.3 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 · 608Every 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 Lisala fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 February 2026 and 14 March 2026: 23 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 27,279 hectares (272.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lisala (26,818 ha, 1.7 %); Businga (649 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class 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
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 608 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.