Luilu fire, 6 August 2026 Luilu
The fire started on 6 August 2026 in Luilu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,332 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 34th largest in Lomami since 2016 (of 66 with a page). Number 345 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.
- Burnt area
- 6,332ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 24days
- 6 Aug 2026 – 29 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 6 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 176
- in a single hotspot: 63 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.9GW
- sum of detected power
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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 3 Sept.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,762 ha in 2016, 5,835 ha in 2017, 7,615 ha in 2018, 5,668 ha in 2019, 6,350 ha in 2020, 3,844 ha in 2021, 5,034 ha in 2022, 5,094 ha in 2023, 3,077 ha in 2024, 3,686 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,337 ha that had burned before.
- 5,695 ha Luilu fire, July 2016 19,175 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,924 ha Luilu fire, August 2023 9,771 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,489 ha Luilu fire, July 2020 8,760 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,039 ha Luilu fire, August 2019 6,144 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Luilu where it started6,378 ha reached on 6 Aug0.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Aug | 31.8 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 7 Aug | 30.1 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Aug | 29.7 °C | 38 % | 18 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Aug | 30.8 °C | 40 % | 21 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Aug | 31.0 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Aug | 29.9 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 12 Aug | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Aug | 32.3 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 14 Aug | 33.4 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Aug | 32.7 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Aug | 32.6 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Aug | 32.5 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Aug | 32.8 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Aug | 33.6 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Aug | 32.6 °C | 15 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 21 Aug | 31.6 °C | 19 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 22 Aug | 32.2 °C | 22 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Aug | 32.3 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Aug | 33.9 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Aug | 34.2 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Aug | 31.7 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Aug | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Aug | 32.9 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Aug | 32.0 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 31 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 1 Sept after | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 3.3 mm | Moderate 13 |
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 26 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 236 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 124: 8.2 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 · 176Every 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 Luilu fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 August 2026 to 29 August 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 August 2026 to 26 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,332 hectares (63.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Luilu (6,378 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.
Report an error
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.