How long did the Luiza fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 May 2026 to 1 July 2026 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 June 2026 to 24 June 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,741 hectares (117.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Luiza (11,824 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.

CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · 2026-05-29 → 2026-07-01

Luiza fire, May 2026 Luiza

Out · last detection 1 Jul 2026, 23:14 UTC

The fire started on 29 May 2026 in Luiza, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,741 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Central Kasai since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 145 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Luiza · 2017 Luiza · 2020 Luiza · 2021 Luiza · 2019

Burnt area: 11,741ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 34days; 29 May 2026 – 1 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 29 May; 2026
Heat detections: 440; in a single hotspot: 256 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 198MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 May1 Jul

Play back 1 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

29 May 5 Jun 10 Jun 15 Jun 18 Jun 20 Jun 25 Jun 30 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

31km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,124 ha in 2016, 6,030 ha in 2017, 4,784 ha in 2018, 3,994 ha in 2019, 7,996 ha in 2020, 4,169 ha in 2021, 5,688 ha in 2022, 1,959 ha in 2023, 5,849 ha in 2024, 1,851 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,721 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.4% of the area of London (117 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

Luiza where it started

11,824 ha reached on 29 May

0.7 %

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.

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	Danger (FWI)
29 May	31.7 °C	29 %	28 km/h	Moderate 19
30 May	31.9 °C	26 %	27 km/h	Moderate 20
31 May	31.8 °C	22 %	29 km/h	High 22
1 Jun	32.0 °C	27 %	29 km/h	High 22
2 Jun	32.4 °C	29 %	24 km/h	High 23
3 Jun	32.0 °C	27 %	23 km/h	High 24
4 Jun	32.1 °C	27 %	26 km/h	High 24
5 Jun	32.4 °C	25 %	19 km/h	High 24
6 Jun	31.9 °C	28 %	21 km/h	High 24
7 Jun	31.5 °C	33 %	23 km/h	High 24
8 Jun	33.5 °C	25 %	29 km/h	High 25
9 Jun	33.2 °C	26 %	28 km/h	High 25
10 Jun	32.8 °C	27 %	27 km/h	High 26
11 Jun	32.9 °C	24 %	26 km/h	High 26
12 Jun	32.3 °C	22 %	29 km/h	High 29
13 Jun	31.7 °C	24 %	31 km/h	High 29
14 Jun	32.0 °C	25 %	25 km/h	High 29
15 Jun	32.1 °C	25 %	23 km/h	High 30
16 Jun	31.4 °C	30 %	19 km/h	High 27
17 Jun	30.9 °C	31 %	17 km/h	High 26
18 Jun	31.9 °C	29 %	31 km/h	High 30
19 Jun	30.8 °C	38 %	24 km/h	High 25
20 Jun	32.5 °C	30 %	31 km/h	High 28
21 Jun	33.0 °C	25 %	26 km/h	High 29
22 Jun	32.5 °C	22 %	26 km/h	High 32
23 Jun	31.3 °C	24 %	24 km/h	High 32
24 Jun	31.4 °C	21 %	29 km/h	High 34
25 Jun	31.7 °C	23 %	21 km/h	High 33
26 Jun	32.1 °C	28 %	21 km/h	High 32
27 Jun	32.2 °C	24 %	27 km/h	High 33
28 Jun	31.8 °C	26 %	22 km/h	High 32
29 Jun	31.7 °C	22 %	23 km/h	High 34
30 Jun	32.5 °C	21 %	29 km/h	High 35
1 Jul	33.0 °C	20 %	23 km/h	High 34
2 Jul after	32.4 °C	24 %	16 km/h	High 34
3 Jul after	33.2 °C	17 %	23 km/h	High 37
4 Jul after	33.3 °C	19 %	31 km/h	Very high 41
5 Jul after	33.1 °C	17 %	34 km/h	Very high 41
6 Jul after	32.7 °C	18 %	34 km/h	Very high 41
7 Jul after	31.9 °C	20 %	31 km/h	Very high 41
8 Jul after	32.1 °C	24 %	26 km/h	Very high 40
9 Jul after	31.8 °C	24 %	28 km/h	Very high 39
10 Jul after	32.8 °C	22 %	20 km/h	High 38
11 Jul after	32.1 °C	20 %	20 km/h	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 May 2026

After · 8 Jul 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 19 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 213 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 107: 7.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak213 µg/m³

Days over the guideline25 days

PM10224 µg/m³

Optical depth1.20

WHO 15

3456789101112131415161718192021222324252627

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 · 440Every 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 Luiza fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 May 2026 to 1 July 2026 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 June 2026 to 24 June 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,741 hectares (117.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Luiza (11,824 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 24 June 2026 → 1 July 2026.
26 October 2026 Start date: 5 June 2026 → 29 May 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 5 June 2026 to 24 June 2026. 440 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.

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