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Mitwaba fire, 6 June 2026 Mitwaba

Out · last detection 22 Jun 2026, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 6 June 2026 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,949 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 304 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
6,949ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
6 Jun 2026 – 21 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
6 Jun
2026
Heat detections
154
in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jun21 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

67891012131415161718192122

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
27km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 540 ha in 2017, 924 ha in 2019, 2,214 ha in 2021, 1,342 ha in 2022, 915 ha in 2024, 154 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,294 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mitwaba where it started
    7,007 ha reached on 30 May
    0.3 %

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 Jun 30.9 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Jun 30.1 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Jun 29.9 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Jun 29.5 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Jun 29.3 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Jun 29.1 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Jun 28.1 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Jun 28.0 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Jun 28.6 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Jun 28.7 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Jun 29.6 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Jun 29.3 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Jun 29.0 °C 41 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Jun 29.2 °C 41 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Jun 29.0 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Jun 27.4 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Jun after 27.3 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jun after 27.4 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Jun after 28.0 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Jun after 28.2 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Jun after 28.2 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jun after 27.4 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Jun after 27.9 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jun after 28.4 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Jun after 29.0 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Jul after 29.4 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 May 2026
After · 28 Jun 2026

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 19 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 87 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak87 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM1089 µg/m³
Optical depth0.61
456789101112131415161718192021222324
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 · 154Every 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 6 June 2026 and 21 June 2026: 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 6,949 hectares (69.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitwaba (7,007 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 27 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 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.