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Luilu fire, July 2026 Luilu, Kaniama

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2026, 12:40 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2026 in Luilu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,159 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 38th largest in Lomami since 2016 (of 66 with a page). Number 357 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
6,159ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
3 Jul 2026 – 12 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
3 Jul
2026
Heat detections
110
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
840MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul12 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

34678910

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
38km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 140 ha in 2019, 1,393 ha in 2020, 59 ha in 2023, 904 ha in 2024, 1,742 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,751 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luilu where it started
    6,150 ha reached on 3 Jul
    0.6 %
  2. Kaniama
    56 ha
    0.0 %

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)
3 Jul 32.7 °C 17 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Jul 32.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Jul 32.5 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Jul 32.0 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Jul 31.7 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Jul 31.9 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jul 31.5 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Jul 32.4 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jul 31.9 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jul 32.6 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Jul after 32.6 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Jul after 31.3 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Jul after 30.9 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul after 31.2 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Jul after 30.9 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jul after 31.7 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jul after 28.8 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Jul after 30.9 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jul after 32.0 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Jul after 32.2 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jun 2026
After · 19 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 10 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 151 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 82: 5.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak151 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10156 µg/m³
Optical depth1.48
123456789101112131415
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 · 110Every 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 Luilu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 July 2026 and 12 July 2026: 10 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 6,159 hectares (61.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Luilu (6,150 ha, 0.6 %); Kaniama (56 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very 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

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.