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Luiza fire, August 2025 Luiza, Luilu

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2025, 11:36 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2025 in Luiza, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,795 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Central Kasai since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 12 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.

Burnt area
12,795ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
18 Aug 2025 – 27 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
18 Aug
2025
Heat detections
705
in a single hotspot: 81 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223252627

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
40km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,177 ha in 2016, 4,539 ha in 2017, 968 ha in 2018, 2,398 ha in 2019, 5,548 ha in 2020, 4,014 ha in 2021, 6,542 ha in 2022, 7,568 ha in 2023, 9,456 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,410 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luiza where it started
    9,332 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.6 %
  2. Luilu
    3,556 ha reached on 15 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
12 Aug 31.2 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug 30.3 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug 30.5 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Aug 31.9 °C 19 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Aug 29.4 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug 29.1 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
18 Aug 30.0 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug 31.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Aug 31.6 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Aug 31.4 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug 32.0 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug 33.9 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Aug 32.0 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Aug 31.1 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
26 Aug 32.1 °C 37 % 24 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 17
27 Aug 30.8 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
28 Aug after 31.6 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug after 35.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug after 35.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
31 Aug after 34.9 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Sept after 34.7 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Sept after 35.6 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Sept after 34.1 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Sept after 33.7 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Sept after 33.1 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Sept after 34.2 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Sept after 33.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Sept after 32.6 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept after 31.5 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Sept after 32.1 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept after 29.6 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
12 Sept after 30.8 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
13 Sept after 31.6 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2025
After · 3 Sept 2025

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 23 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 184 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 110: 7.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak184 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10187 µg/m³
Optical depth2.30
161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 705Every 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 Luiza fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 August 2025 and 27 August 2025: 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 12,795 hectares (128.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Luiza (9,332 ha, 0.6 %); Luilu (3,556 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.