Skip to content
worldfires
en
CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · →

Masi-Manimba fire, July 2023 Masi-Manimba

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2023, 11:48 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2023 in Masi-Manimba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,467 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 121th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 27 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023, of 76.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Masi-Manimba · 2016Masi-Manimba · 2020Masi-Manimba · 2021Masi-Manimba · 2022

Burnt area
7,467ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
23 Jul 2023 – 16 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
23 Jul
2023
Heat detections
403
in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
187MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul16 Aug
16 Aug 2023

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 2023 · 3 MW · 1 24 Jul 2023 · 14 MW · 1 25 Jul 2023 · 5 MW · 1 28 Jul 2023 · 102 MW · 11 29 Jul 2023 · 210 MW · 18 30 Jul 2023 · 10 MW · 2 31 Jul 2023 · 153 MW · 14 1 Aug 2023 · 96 MW · 11 2 Aug 2023 · 292 MW · 30 3 Aug 2023 · 220 MW · 19 4 Aug 2023 · 222 MW · 27 5 Aug 2023 · 1,686 MW · 130 6 Aug 2023 · 55 MW · 12 7 Aug 2023 · 201 MW · 17 8 Aug 2023 · 338 MW · 32 9 Aug 2023 · 163 MW · 24 10 Aug 2023 · 36 MW · 5 11 Aug 2023 · 21 MW · 3 12 Aug 2023 · 46 MW · 4 13 Aug 2023 · 90 MW · 11 14 Aug 2023 · 249 MW · 22 15 Aug 2023 · 10 MW · 2 16 Aug 2023 · 90 MW · 6
23 Jul 29 Jul 2 Aug 5 Aug 6 Aug 10 Aug 14 Aug

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
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 26 Aug.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,093 ha in 2016, 3,749 ha in 2017, 4,020 ha in 2018, 4,040 ha in 2019, 4,841 ha in 2020, 894 ha in 2021, 1,942 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,329 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.7% of the area of London (75 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. Masi-Manimba where it started
    7,521 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.5 %

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 area28 ha
Residents≈ 3,300

Inside the perimeter there were about 28 hectares of built-up land and about 3,300 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)
23 Jul 34.9 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jul 34.1 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
25 Jul 34.1 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Jul 33.4 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Jul 33.3 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Jul 34.6 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jul 33.2 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Jul 33.3 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jul 32.9 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
1 Aug 34.9 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Aug 33.0 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Aug 31.5 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
4 Aug 34.8 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
5 Aug 34.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Aug 34.8 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug 34.9 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug 32.2 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Aug 33.1 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Aug 32.7 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
11 Aug 33.3 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
12 Aug 32.9 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
13 Aug 34.8 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug 34.9 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug 32.7 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Aug 34.1 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
17 Aug after 33.7 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
18 Aug after 32.3 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
19 Aug after 32.4 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
20 Aug after 32.6 °C 49 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
21 Aug after 33.3 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
22 Aug after 34.7 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
23 Aug after 36.1 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Aug after 32.7 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Aug after 32.4 °C 52 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
26 Aug after 33.2 °C 50 % 23 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2023
After · 23 Aug 2023

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 6 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 142 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 90: 6.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak142 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM10203 µg/m³
Optical depth2.27
262728293031123456789101112
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 · 403Every 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 Masi-Manimba fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 July 2023 to 16 August 2023 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 July 2023 to 9 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,467 hectares (74.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Masi-Manimba (7,521 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 9 August 2023 → 16 August 2023.
  2. Start date: 28 July 2023 → 23 July 2023.

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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

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 28 July 2023 to 9 August 2023. 403 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.