Mitwaba fire, July 2025 Mitwaba
The fire started on 6 July 2025 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,427 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 4th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 9 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 15,427ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 6 Jul 2025 – 12 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 6 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 532
- in a single hotspot: 388 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 11.1GW
- sum of detected power
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 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,571 ha in 2016, 3,198 ha in 2017, 11,099 ha in 2018, 8,201 ha in 2019, 6,204 ha in 2020, 6,893 ha in 2021, 6,152 ha in 2022, 3,998 ha in 2023, 4,996 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,338 ha that had burned before.
- 4,328 ha Mitwaba fire, July 2021 5,347 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,104 ha Mitwaba fire, June 2020 5,650 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 655 ha Mitwaba fire, July 2024 6,350 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 92 ha Mitwaba fire, July 2021 5,009 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 87 ha Mitwaba fire, July 2020 6,590 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 41 ha Mitwaba fire, July 2022 6,189 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19 ha Mitwaba fire, June 2016 5,187 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5 ha Mitwaba fire, July 2024 7,139 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mitwaba where it started15,516 ha reached on 8 Jul0.6 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Jul | 24.9 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Jul | 24.4 °C | 39 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Jul | 23.9 °C | 33 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Jul | 22.3 °C | 33 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 10 Jul | 22.1 °C | 39 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Jul | 22.8 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 12 Jul | 24.1 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Jul after | 25.2 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Jul after | 25.6 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Jul after | 24.4 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Jul after | 24.0 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 17 Jul after | 24.8 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Jul after | 24.8 °C | 40 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 19 Jul after | 25.8 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 20 Jul after | 24.1 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 21 Jul after | 23.6 °C | 37 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Jul after | 23.8 °C | 41 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
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 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 42 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 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 · 532Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mitwaba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 July 2025 and 12 July 2025: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,427 hectares (154.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mitwaba (15,516 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 24.9 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Congo - Kinshasa (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
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
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.