Masi-Manimba fire, 27 July 2026 Masi-Manimba, Kenge
The fire started on 27 July 2026 in Masi-Manimba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 49 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 115,183 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
It is the 3th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 6 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 115,183ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 49days
- 27 Jul 2026 – 13 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 27 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 3,237
- in a single hotspot: 184 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 667MW
- 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 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 15 Sept.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 42,486 ha in 2016, 27,041 ha in 2017, 21,063 ha in 2018, 28,191 ha in 2019, 51,696 ha in 2020, 13,819 ha in 2021, 20,361 ha in 2022, 30,757 ha in 2023, 40,648 ha in 2024, 56,127 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 98,482 ha that had burned before.
- 21,070 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2020 20,868 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,929 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2025 9,755 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,139 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2025 7,774 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,171 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2016 6,698 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,232 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2024 5,931 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,736 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2016 5,140 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,508 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2016 5,658 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 98 ha Masi-Manimba fire, May 2021 14,313 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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 started104,394 ha reached on 27 Jul7.2 %
-
11,557 ha reached on 6 Aug0.6 %
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 164 hectares of built-up land and about 21,000 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Jul | 32.1 °C | 45 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Jul | 30.8 °C | 47 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Jul | 32.0 °C | 44 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 30 Jul | 31.1 °C | 49 % | 24 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 31 Jul | 30.1 °C | 56 % | 21 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 1 Aug | 32.0 °C | 43 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 2 Aug | 31.7 °C | 46 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 3 Aug | 30.8 °C | 49 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 21 |
| 4 Aug | 32.7 °C | 47 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 5 Aug | 32.9 °C | 39 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 6 Aug | 33.1 °C | 39 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 7 Aug | 29.8 °C | 53 % | 19 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 8 Aug | 32.3 °C | 48 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 9 Aug | 31.6 °C | 50 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 21 |
| 10 Aug | 31.1 °C | 49 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 11 Aug | 31.1 °C | 50 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Aug | 33.9 °C | 41 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Aug | 34.7 °C | 41 % | 20 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Aug | 32.4 °C | 48 % | 25 km/h | 1.9 mm | Low 10 |
| 15 Aug | 31.5 °C | 46 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 16 Aug | 31.8 °C | 47 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 21 |
| 17 Aug | 33.7 °C | 38 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 18 Aug | 33.5 °C | 37 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 19 Aug | 32.9 °C | 36 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 20 Aug | 33.2 °C | 38 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 21 Aug | 31.2 °C | 49 % | 20 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Aug | 33.8 °C | 47 % | 21 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 23 Aug | 33.0 °C | 52 % | 19 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 24 Aug | 32.0 °C | 47 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 25 Aug | 33.7 °C | 46 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 26 Aug | 33.4 °C | 47 % | 18 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 23 |
| 27 Aug | 36.9 °C | 33 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 28 Aug | 32.4 °C | 52 % | 30 km/h | 2.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 29 Aug | 29.2 °C | 60 % | 26 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 30 Aug | 32.5 °C | 47 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 31 Aug | 32.1 °C | 49 % | 23 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 1 Sept | 36.1 °C | 39 % | 21 km/h | 2.7 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 2 Sept | 34.9 °C | 45 % | 17 km/h | 4.9 mm | Very low 5 |
| 3 Sept | 30.0 °C | 61 % | 32 km/h | 0.8 mm | Low 9 |
| 4 Sept | 34.5 °C | 39 % | 20 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 5 Sept | 34.4 °C | 43 % | 21 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 6 Sept | 34.1 °C | 44 % | 23 km/h | 2.5 mm | Low 8 |
| 7 Sept | 33.9 °C | 48 % | 23 km/h | 7.1 mm | Very low 3 |
| 8 Sept | 34.3 °C | 46 % | 17 km/h | 7.5 mm | Very low 3 |
| 9 Sept | 33.1 °C | 48 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 10 Sept | 32.9 °C | 47 % | 21 km/h | 0.7 mm | Low 10 |
| 11 Sept | 31.8 °C | 51 % | 26 km/h | 2.4 mm | Very low 3 |
| 12 Sept | 33.0 °C | 44 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 13 Sept | 32.4 °C | 50 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 11 |
| 14 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 45 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 15 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 42 % | 18 km/h | 2.6 mm | Very low 5 |
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 30 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 277 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 172: 12 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 · 3,237Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 20,868 haMasi-Manimba1 August 2020 · 18 days · 9 km away
- 18,151 haMasi-Manimba6 August 2026 · 30 days · 22 km away
- 15,765 haMasi-Manimba22 July 2020 · 34 days · 26 km away
- 157,501 haMasi-Manimba27 July 2026 · 41 days · 28 km away
- 14,313 haMasi-Manimba21 May 2021 · 21 days · 35 km away
- 26,481 haMasi-Manimba24 July 2020 · 34 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 27 July 2026 to 13 September 2026 (49 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2026 to 6 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 115,183 hectares (1,151.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Masi-Manimba (104,394 ha, 7.2 %); Kenge (11,557 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 August 2026 to 6 September 2026. 3,237 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.