Masi-Manimba fire, 14 May 2026 Masi-Manimba, Bulungu
The fire started on 14 May 2026 in Masi-Manimba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 61,670 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 12 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 61,670ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 33days
- 14 May 2026 – 15 Jun 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 14 May
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,598
- in a single hotspot: 202 MW
- Danger at start
- 4
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 797MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 18 Jun.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17,689 ha in 2016, 19,826 ha in 2017, 31,205 ha in 2018, 23,115 ha in 2019, 17,404 ha in 2020, 17,954 ha in 2021, 27,547 ha in 2022, 1,619 ha in 2023, 7,419 ha in 2024, 9,944 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 56,672 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Masi-Manimba where it started61,781 ha reached on 14 May4.3 %
-
325 ha reached on 14 May0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 61 hectares of built-up land and about 6,600 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 May | 32.0 °C | 46 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 4 |
| 15 May | 30.4 °C | 48 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 16 May | 30.3 °C | 55 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 5 |
| 17 May | 31.1 °C | 51 % | 28 km/h | 1.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 18 May | 30.8 °C | 55 % | 33 km/h | 2.3 mm | Very low 1 |
| 19 May | 27.5 °C | 68 % | 27 km/h | 5.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 20 May | 28.4 °C | 64 % | 26 km/h | 1.6 mm | Very low 0 |
| 21 May | 29.7 °C | 61 % | 26 km/h | 0.8 mm | Very low 1 |
| 22 May | 30.0 °C | 57 % | 28 km/h | 1.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 23 May | 29.7 °C | 65 % | 27 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very low 2 |
| 24 May | 30.2 °C | 52 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 6 |
| 25 May | 32.1 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 26 May | 31.8 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 27 May | 31.2 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 28 May | 31.6 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 29 May | 32.1 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 30 May | 31.9 °C | 40 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 31 May | 31.7 °C | 35 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 1 Jun | 32.1 °C | 32 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 2 Jun | 31.7 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 3 Jun | 31.9 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 4 Jun | 31.4 °C | 37 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 5 Jun | 31.5 °C | 38 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 6 Jun | 31.3 °C | 39 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 7 Jun | 30.5 °C | 46 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 8 Jun | 29.3 °C | 51 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 9 Jun | 31.9 °C | 39 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 10 Jun | 31.3 °C | 40 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 11 Jun | 29.9 °C | 52 % | 27 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 12 Jun | 30.3 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 13 Jun | 30.7 °C | 34 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 14 Jun | 32.2 °C | 30 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 15 Jun | 30.6 °C | 36 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Jun after | 29.6 °C | 47 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 17 Jun after | 29.6 °C | 48 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 18 Jun after | 28.3 °C | 64 % | 28 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 6 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 4 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 126 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 93: 6.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,598Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,074 haMasi-Manimba6 June 2022 · 7 days · 12 km away
- 13,083 haMasi-Manimba6 June 2017 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 157,501 haMasi-Manimba27 July 2026 · 41 days · 27 km away
- 15,765 haMasi-Manimba22 July 2020 · 34 days · 27 km away
- 14,313 haMasi-Manimba21 May 2021 · 21 days · 34 km away
- 20,175 haMasi-Manimba22 May 2026 · 15 days · 36 km away
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 14 May 2026 to 15 June 2026 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 May 2026 to 9 June 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 61,670 hectares (616.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Masi-Manimba (61,781 ha, 4.3 %); Bulungu (325 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- 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.
- Last day with fire: 9 June 2026 → 15 June 2026.
- Start date: 21 May 2026 → 14 May 2026.
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
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 21 May 2026 to 9 June 2026. 1,598 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.
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.