How long did the Luilu fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 August 2026 to 5 September 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 August 2026 to 29 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,586 hectares (85.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Luilu (8,649 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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.

CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · 2026-08-13 → 2026-09-05

Luilu fire, 13 August 2026 Luilu

Out · last detection 5 Sept 2026, 11:34 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2026 in Luilu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,586 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Lomami since 2016 (of 66 with a page). Number 225 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Luilu · 2025 Luilu · 2016 Luiza · 2025 Luiza · 2026

Burnt area: 8,586ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 24days; 13 Aug 2026 – 5 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 13 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 176; in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start: 26; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 99MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug5 Sept

Play back 5 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

13 Aug 17 Aug 19 Aug 22 Aug 25 Aug 28 Aug 3 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

38km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 13 Sept.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,131 ha in 2016, 7,210 ha in 2017, 4,793 ha in 2018, 4,110 ha in 2019, 7,913 ha in 2020, 6,004 ha in 2021, 3,564 ha in 2022, 4,191 ha in 2023, 5,475 ha in 2024, 4,924 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,408 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 5.4% of the area of London (86 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Luilu where it started

8,649 ha reached on 13 Aug

0.8 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area13 ha

Residents≈ 2,500

Inside the perimeter there were about 13 hectares of built-up land and about 2,500 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
13 Aug	31.8 °C	31 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
14 Aug	32.5 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
15 Aug	32.0 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Aug	32.0 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
17 Aug	31.9 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
18 Aug	32.2 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Aug	33.0 °C	14 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
20 Aug	32.0 °C	16 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
21 Aug	31.0 °C	21 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Aug	31.6 °C	24 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
23 Aug	31.9 °C	25 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Aug	33.5 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Aug	33.7 °C	26 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
26 Aug	31.2 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Aug	34.7 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Aug	32.3 °C	28 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
29 Aug	31.3 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
30 Aug	32.8 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Aug	31.8 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
1 Sept	34.6 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
2 Sept	33.8 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
3 Sept	32.9 °C	33 %	23 km/h	3.7 mm	Moderate 12
4 Sept	31.6 °C	40 %	25 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 17
5 Sept	30.2 °C	46 %	22 km/h	3.0 mm	Low 6
6 Sept after	34.0 °C	26 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
7 Sept after	32.1 °C	36 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
8 Sept after	33.5 °C	29 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
9 Sept after	32.3 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
10 Sept after	31.6 °C	33 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
11 Sept after	31.3 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
12 Sept after	31.7 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
13 Sept after	30.6 °C	41 %	28 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Aug 2026

After · 12 Sept 2026

Before After

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 20 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 391 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 230: 15 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak391 µg/m³

Days over the guideline29 days

PM10404 µg/m³

Optical depth2.09

WHO 15

11121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678

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 · 176Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Luilu fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 August 2026 to 5 September 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 August 2026 to 29 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,586 hectares (85.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Luilu (8,649 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 August 2026 to 29 August 2026. 176 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned