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Mitwaba fire, September 2025 Mitwaba

Out · last detection 28 Sept 2025, 11:36 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2025 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,272 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 81th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 110 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.

Burnt area
5,272ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
13 Sept 2025 – 28 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
13 Sept
2025
Heat detections
174
in a single hotspot: 156 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept28 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

131516171819202122232425262728

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

37°high
37km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,622 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,498 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mitwaba where it started
    5,315 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.2 %

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)
13 Sept 33.8 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept 33.6 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Sept 33.6 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept 34.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Sept 35.6 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept 36.5 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Sept 34.0 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept 36.1 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Sept 34.2 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Sept 34.3 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Sept 36.8 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Sept 35.3 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Sept 34.3 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Sept 34.9 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Sept 36.1 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Sept 35.2 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Sept after 34.6 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Sept after 34.5 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Oct after 33.8 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
2 Oct after 31.8 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Oct after 34.9 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Oct after 34.3 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Oct after 34.1 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Oct after 34.2 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Oct after 35.3 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Oct after 34.3 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Sept 2025
After · 5 Oct 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 1 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM1063 µg/m³
Optical depth1.46
11121314151617181920212223242526272829301
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 · 174Every 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 Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mitwaba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 September 2025 and 28 September 2025: 16 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 5,272 hectares (52.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitwaba (5,315 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.

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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.