How long did the Luozi fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2026 and 15 September 2026: 15 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 17,854 hectares (178.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Luozi (17,969 ha, 2.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2026-09-01 → 2026-09-15

Luozi fire, 1 September 2026 Luozi

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2026, 13:27 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2026 in Luozi, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,854 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Kongo-Central since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 86 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area: 17,854ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 1 Sept 2026 – 15 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 1 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 460; in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start: 16; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 3.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

123456781011121415

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

32km/h · peak gust

42%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 26 Sept.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 651 ha in 2016, 866 ha in 2021, 1,031 ha in 2022, 5,481 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,908 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Luozi where it started

17,969 ha reached on 1 Sept

2.5 %

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 Sept	33.8 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 16
2 Sept	29.7 °C	57 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
3 Sept	26.9 °C	68 %	24 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 14
4 Sept	31.7 °C	53 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
5 Sept	28.2 °C	64 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
6 Sept	29.9 °C	56 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
7 Sept	32.8 °C	48 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
8 Sept	31.6 °C	54 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
9 Sept	27.7 °C	61 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
10 Sept	30.8 °C	50 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
11 Sept	30.1 °C	54 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
12 Sept	30.5 °C	53 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
13 Sept	26.8 °C	64 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 16
14 Sept	33.9 °C	46 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
15 Sept	30.1 °C	52 %	27 km/h	0.1 mm	High 22
16 Sept after	28.1 °C	57 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
17 Sept after	28.0 °C	61 %	25 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 17
18 Sept after	28.4 °C	63 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
19 Sept after	28.9 °C	61 %	30 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 15
20 Sept after	31.6 °C	51 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 20
21 Sept after	28.3 °C	59 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
22 Sept after	32.4 °C	42 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
23 Sept after	33.1 °C	44 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
24 Sept after	32.4 °C	50 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
25 Sept after	30.1 °C	57 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
26 Sept after	26.6 °C	66 %	27 km/h	1.4 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Aug 2026

After · 22 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 8 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 174 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak174 µg/m³

Days over the guideline25 days

PM10181 µg/m³

Optical depth2.38

WHO 15

303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425

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 · 460Every 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 Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Luozi fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 September 2026 and 15 September 2026: 15 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 17,854 hectares (178.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Luozi (17,969 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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