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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Manono fire, 28 July 2025 Manono, Kabongo

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2025, 11:48 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2025 in Manono, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,704 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 44th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 22 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.

Burnt area
9,704ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
28 Jul 2025 – 5 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
28 Jul
2025
Heat detections
386
in a single hotspot: 315 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul5 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112345

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
45km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 678 ha in 2016, 1,160 ha in 2017, 2,650 ha in 2018, 2,780 ha in 2019, 4,616 ha in 2020, 3,268 ha in 2021, 1,311 ha in 2022, 4,055 ha in 2023, 2,078 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,967 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manono where it started
    9,456 ha reached on 21 Jul
    0.3 %
  2. Kabongo
    300 ha reached on 21 Jul
    0.0 %

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)
21 Jul 31.9 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Jul 30.7 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Jul 30.9 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Jul 31.7 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jul 32.9 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jul 33.3 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jul 33.5 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul 32.0 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jul 31.1 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul 31.2 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul 32.2 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug 32.6 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Aug 33.7 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Aug 32.6 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Aug 32.4 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Aug 32.8 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Aug after 33.6 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug after 33.0 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug after 33.1 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Aug after 35.2 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Aug after 32.6 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Aug after 32.6 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Aug after 33.6 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Aug after 34.4 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug after 33.9 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Aug after 34.1 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2025
After · 12 Aug 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 31 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 103 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 73: 4.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak103 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10106 µg/m³
Optical depth1.44
26272829303112345678
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 · 386Every 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 Manono fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 July 2025 and 5 August 2025: 9 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 9,704 hectares (97.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Manono (9,456 ha, 0.3 %); Kabongo (300 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.