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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Luiza fire, 1 August 2026 Luiza

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2026, 12:29 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2026 in Luiza, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,944 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 61th largest in Central Kasai since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 382 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
5,944ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
1 Aug 2026 – 2 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
1 Aug
2026
Heat detections
241
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

125678910111213141516171920222324252627282930312

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
36km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.8 mm on 3 Sept.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 145 ha in 2017, 2,259 ha in 2020, 591 ha in 2022, 1,628 ha in 2023, 3,546 ha in 2024, 3,235 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,093 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luiza where it started
    5,985 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.4 %

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)
1 Aug 31.6 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug 32.1 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug 32.1 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug 32.2 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug 32.5 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Aug 32.2 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug 31.5 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug 29.8 °C 39 % 17 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
9 Aug 30.7 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
10 Aug 32.2 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Aug 29.5 °C 48 % 27 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
12 Aug 31.1 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
13 Aug 31.6 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Aug 32.2 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug 32.8 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Aug 32.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug 32.5 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug 32.6 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug 32.9 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Aug 32.4 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Aug 30.6 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug 31.4 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug 31.5 °C 37 % 19 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
24 Aug 33.8 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Aug 33.2 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Aug 30.5 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Aug 34.9 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Aug 32.8 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Aug 30.0 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
30 Aug 32.7 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Aug 32.3 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
1 Sept 33.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Sept 33.3 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Sept after 33.6 °C 38 % 30 km/h 6.8 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2026
After · 9 Sept 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 20 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 249 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 195: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak249 µg/m³
Days over the guideline38 days
PM10260 µg/m³
Optical depth2.24
30311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345
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 · 241Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 August 2026 to 2 September 2026 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 August 2026 to 31 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,944 hectares (59.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luiza (5,985 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.