Masi-Manimba fire, 27 July 2026 Masi-Manimba
The fire started on 27 July 2026 in Masi-Manimba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 41 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 157,501 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
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:
- 115,183 haMasi-Manimba27 July 2026 · 49 days
- 53,634 haBulungu1 August 2026 · 27 days
- 18,151 haMasi-Manimba6 August 2026 · 30 days
- 17,237 haBagata1 August 2026 · 27 days
- 11,903 haMasi-Manimba2 August 2026 · 12 days
- 11,255 haMasi-Manimba5 August 2026 · 23 days
- 9,179 haBagata9 August 2026 · 20 days
- 8,611 haMasi-Manimba17 August 2026 · 11 days
It is the 2th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 235 with a page). Number 2 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2026, of 523.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 157,501ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 41days
- 27 Jul 2026 – 5 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 27 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 3,815
- in a single hotspot: 120 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 846MW
- 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: 1.7 mm on 6 Sept.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 64,536 ha in 2016, 64,495 ha in 2017, 22,246 ha in 2018, 54,203 ha in 2019, 84,043 ha in 2020, 20,367 ha in 2021, 25,360 ha in 2022, 54,473 ha in 2023, 42,115 ha in 2024, 66,856 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 131,327 ha that had burned before.
- 24,339 ha Masi-Manimba fire, July 2020 26,481 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 21,909 ha Masi-Manimba fire, July 2020 15,765 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 15,267 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2016 11,122 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13,626 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2023 11,498 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13,208 ha Masi-Manimba fire, July 2022 8,407 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,692 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2019 9,735 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,445 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2020 12,439 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,472 ha Masi-Manimba fire, August 2025 12,144 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 started158,517 ha reached on 27 Jul11 %
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 444 hectares of built-up land and about 59,000 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 | 32.8 °C | 42 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Jul | 31.2 °C | 45 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Jul | 32.1 °C | 43 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Jul | 30.3 °C | 52 % | 27 km/h | 2.3 mm | Low 7 |
| 31 Jul | 29.6 °C | 60 % | 23 km/h | 1.5 mm | Low 7 |
| 1 Aug | 32.1 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 2 Aug | 31.6 °C | 46 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 3 Aug | 30.4 °C | 52 % | 24 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 4 Aug | 32.0 °C | 51 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 5 Aug | 33.1 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 6 Aug | 33.2 °C | 37 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 7 Aug | 29.2 °C | 57 % | 21 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 8 Aug | 31.4 °C | 53 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 9 Aug | 31.4 °C | 52 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 10 Aug | 31.3 °C | 51 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 Aug | 30.6 °C | 54 % | 21 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 12 Aug | 33.5 °C | 44 % | 18 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 13 Aug | 34.5 °C | 43 % | 26 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 14 Aug | 32.2 °C | 51 % | 31 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 22 |
| 15 Aug | 31.7 °C | 45 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 16 Aug | 31.9 °C | 46 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 17 Aug | 33.4 °C | 40 % | 18 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 18 Aug | 33.5 °C | 38 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 19 Aug | 33.1 °C | 35 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 20 Aug | 33.0 °C | 39 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 21 Aug | 30.7 °C | 50 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 23 |
| 22 Aug | 33.1 °C | 52 % | 19 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 22 |
| 23 Aug | 32.3 °C | 58 % | 22 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 24 Aug | 31.8 °C | 48 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 25 Aug | 32.9 °C | 52 % | 20 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 26 Aug | 32.9 °C | 51 % | 22 km/h | 2.1 mm | Low 9 |
| 27 Aug | 36.4 °C | 36 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Aug | 32.5 °C | 54 % | 30 km/h | 9.7 mm | Very low 4 |
| 29 Aug | 28.2 °C | 67 % | 25 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 6 |
| 30 Aug | 31.4 °C | 55 % | 23 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 11 |
| 31 Aug | 30.9 °C | 57 % | 24 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 1 Sept | 35.0 °C | 47 % | 19 km/h | 3.4 mm | Low 6 |
| 2 Sept | 34.2 °C | 52 % | 18 km/h | 4.5 mm | Very low 3 |
| 3 Sept | 29.0 °C | 66 % | 33 km/h | 5.7 mm | Very low 1 |
| 4 Sept | 33.4 °C | 44 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 6 |
| 5 Sept | 33.3 °C | 49 % | 19 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 10 |
| 6 Sept after | 33.1 °C | 54 % | 20 km/h | 1.7 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 19 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 512 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 242: 16 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 · 3,815Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,765 haMasi-Manimba22 July 2020 · 34 days · 2 km away
- 14,313 haMasi-Manimba21 May 2021 · 21 days · 16 km away
- 20,175 haMasi-Manimba22 May 2026 · 15 days · 20 km away
- 13,083 haMasi-Manimba6 June 2017 · 6 days · 20 km away
- 61,670 haMasi-Manimba14 May 2026 · 33 days · 27 km away
- 115,183 haMasi-Manimba27 July 2026 · 49 days · 28 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 5 September 2026 (41 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2026 to 29 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 157,501 hectares (1,575.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Masi-Manimba (158,517 ha, 11 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 August 2026 to 29 August 2026. 3,815 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.