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CD · Democratic Republic of the Congo · –

Masi-Manimba fire, 3 August 2025 Masi-Manimba

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2025, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2025 in Masi-Manimba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,321 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 56 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, of 61.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
5,321ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
3 Aug 2025 – 1 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
3 Aug
2025
Heat detections
325
in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
101MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug1 Sept
1 Sept 2025

How it evolved, day by day

3 Aug 2025 · 7 MW · 2 4 Aug 2025 · 20 MW · 5 7 Aug 2025 · 73 MW · 5 8 Aug 2025 · 56 MW · 10 9 Aug 2025 · 97 MW · 20 10 Aug 2025 · 48 MW · 5 11 Aug 2025 · 27 MW · 5 12 Aug 2025 · 104 MW · 14 13 Aug 2025 · 332 MW · 35 14 Aug 2025 · 205 MW · 24 15 Aug 2025 · 238 MW · 19 16 Aug 2025 · 303 MW · 53 17 Aug 2025 · 44 MW · 6 18 Aug 2025 · 236 MW · 24 19 Aug 2025 · 139 MW · 15 20 Aug 2025 · 84 MW · 10 21 Aug 2025 · 44 MW · 5 23 Aug 2025 · 95 MW · 13 24 Aug 2025 · 11 MW · 3 25 Aug 2025 · 213 MW · 14 26 Aug 2025 · 127 MW · 17 27 Aug 2025 · 41 MW · 7 28 Aug 2025 · 23 MW · 5 29 Aug 2025 · 20 MW · 5 30 Aug 2025 · 3 MW · 1 1 Sept 2025 · 39 MW · 3
3 Aug 13 Aug 24 Aug 30 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

36°high
33km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,314 ha in 2016, 3,385 ha in 2017, 517 ha in 2018, 1,835 ha in 2019, 3,668 ha in 2020, 805 ha in 2021, 1,068 ha in 2022, 1,847 ha in 2023, 2,912 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,072 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.4% of the area of London (53 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
    5,355 ha reached on 3 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 area12 ha
Residents≈ 1,300

Inside the perimeter there were about 12 hectares of built-up land and about 1,300 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)
3 Aug 33.6 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Aug 33.8 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Aug 33.6 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug 33.7 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug 33.4 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Aug 33.0 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Aug 32.2 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Aug 34.1 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug 34.7 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Aug 33.2 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Aug 31.4 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
14 Aug 32.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
15 Aug 32.4 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug 34.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug 34.9 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug 33.8 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Aug 33.6 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Aug 35.1 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Aug 33.2 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
22 Aug 33.0 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug 34.2 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug 34.2 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Aug 34.1 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Aug 35.8 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Aug 35.5 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
28 Aug 34.6 °C 37 % 29 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 20
29 Aug 36.3 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
30 Aug 35.2 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
31 Aug 32.5 °C 42 % 26 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 12
1 Sept 35.1 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Sept after 35.7 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Sept after 33.7 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Sept after 32.8 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Sept after 35.7 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
6 Sept after 35.6 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.6 mm High 27
7 Sept after 35.4 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
8 Sept after 36.6 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.6 mm High 31
9 Sept after 34.2 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Sept after 36.3 °C 32 % 26 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2025
After · 8 Sept 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 19 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 228 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 152: 10 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak228 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM10235 µg/m³
Optical depth2.14
7 Aug12 Aug17 Aug22 Aug27 Aug
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 · 325Every 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 3 August 2025 to 1 September 2025 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 August 2025 to 26 August 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,321 hectares (53.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Masi-Manimba (5,355 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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: 26 August 2025 → 1 September 2025.
  2. Start date: 9 August 2025 → 3 August 2025.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 9 August 2025 to 26 August 2025. 325 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.