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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Manono fire, 18 July 2026 Manono

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2026, 11:57 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Manono, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,592 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 49th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 196 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
9,592ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
18 Jul 2026 – 7 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
18 Jul
2026
Heat detections
208
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul7 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

18192021222426272829303112568

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
46km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11 ha in 2016, 3,803 ha in 2017, 671 ha in 2018, 1,218 ha in 2019, 1,004 ha in 2020, 763 ha in 2021, 34 ha in 2022, 1,258 ha in 2023, 16 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,332 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manono where it started
    9,650 ha reached on 16 Jul
    0.3 %

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)
16 Jul 32.2 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Jul 32.3 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Jul 33.0 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Jul 32.8 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Jul 33.7 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Jul 34.5 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul 33.8 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jul 35.0 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jul 33.9 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jul 34.5 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jul 33.9 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jul 33.5 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jul 34.0 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jul 34.2 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jul 34.2 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jul 34.2 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Aug 32.8 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Aug 33.6 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Aug 33.6 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Aug 34.1 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Aug 34.0 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug 33.7 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Aug 34.3 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Aug after 34.3 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Aug after 34.9 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Aug after 36.2 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Aug after 34.7 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Aug after 34.8 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Aug after 34.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug after 33.8 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Aug after 33.0 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Aug after 33.8 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Aug after 34.3 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2026
After · 14 Aug 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 19 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 118 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 79: 5.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak118 µg/m³
Days over the guideline26 days
PM10122 µg/m³
Optical depth1.39
1617181920212223242526272829303112345678910
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 · 208Every 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 18 July 2026 and 7 August 2026: 21 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 9,592 hectares (95.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manono (9,650 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.