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Lusambo fire, 13 August 2026 Lusambo, Dimbelenge

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2026, 23:39 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2026 in Lusambo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,786 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 60th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 162 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Dimbelenge · 2023

Burnt area
10,786ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
13 Aug 2026 – 7 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
13 Aug
2026
Heat detections
355
in a single hotspot: 91 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
159MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug7 Sept
7 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

13 Aug 2026 · 19 MW · 2 14 Aug 2026 · 187 MW · 11 15 Aug 2026 · 67 MW · 13 16 Aug 2026 · 5 MW · 1 17 Aug 2026 · 147 MW · 16 18 Aug 2026 · 1 MW · 1 19 Aug 2026 · 20 MW · 2 21 Aug 2026 · 168 MW · 13 22 Aug 2026 · 169 MW · 9 23 Aug 2026 · 29 MW · 4 24 Aug 2026 · 1,536 MW · 95 25 Aug 2026 · 86 MW · 17 27 Aug 2026 · 274 MW · 35 28 Aug 2026 · 524 MW · 62 29 Aug 2026 · 436 MW · 45 30 Aug 2026 · 35 MW · 6 31 Aug 2026 · 15 MW · 3 1 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 2 Sept 2026 · 9 MW · 1 3 Sept 2026 · 5 MW · 2 4 Sept 2026 · 62 MW · 8 5 Sept 2026 · 5 MW · 4 6 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1 7 Sept 2026 · 20 MW · 3
13 Aug 17 Aug 22 Aug 24 Aug 27 Aug 31 Aug 4 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

37°high
37km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 15 Sept.

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,087 ha in 2017, 1,960 ha in 2019, 364 ha in 2020, 2,773 ha in 2023, 3,939 ha in 2024, 4,316 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,245 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.8% of the area of London (108 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

  1. Lusambo where it started
    6,182 ha reached on 13 Aug
    0.5 %
  2. Dimbelenge
    4,684 ha reached on 14 Aug
    0.4 %

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 area3.3 ha
Residents≈ 450

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.3 hectares of built-up land and about 450 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 32.8 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
14 Aug 33.8 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug 34.9 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug 33.8 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug 33.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug 33.4 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug 34.8 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug 32.6 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
21 Aug 32.9 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Aug 34.1 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug 32.5 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Aug 34.5 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Aug 33.8 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Aug 32.3 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Aug 36.9 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug 34.5 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Aug 33.5 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 38
30 Aug 33.0 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
31 Aug 34.4 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Sept 36.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Sept 36.0 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Sept 34.6 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
4 Sept 34.4 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
5 Sept 34.0 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
6 Sept 35.8 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Sept 32.8 °C 42 % 21 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 21
8 Sept after 35.9 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept after 34.8 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Sept after 32.4 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
11 Sept after 32.6 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Sept after 33.5 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
13 Sept after 33.6 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Sept after 33.7 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Sept after 33.5 °C 43 % 22 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2026
After · 14 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 25 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 166 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 116: 7.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak166 µg/m³
Days over the guideline31 days
PM10170 µg/m³
Optical depth1.70
11121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345678910
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 · 355Every 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lusambo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 August 2026 to 7 September 2026 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 August 2026 to 1 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,786 hectares (107.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lusambo (6,182 ha, 0.5 %); Dimbelenge (4,684 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 37 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 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

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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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 14 August 2026 to 1 September 2026. 355 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.