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Mitwaba fire, 11 June 2026 Mitwaba

Out · last detection 27 Jun 2026, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 11 June 2026 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,217 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 48th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 349 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
6,217ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
11 Jun 2026 – 26 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
11 Jun
2026
Heat detections
168
in a single hotspot: 113 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jun26 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
29km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,186 ha in 2017, 355 ha in 2018, 613 ha in 2019, 611 ha in 2020, 172 ha in 2022, 111 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,676 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mitwaba where it started
    6,261 ha reached on 5 Jun
    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)
11 Jun 28.4 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Jun 27.3 °C 46 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Jun 27.2 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Jun 27.9 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Jun 28.2 °C 44 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Jun 29.5 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Jun 28.0 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Jun 29.4 °C 39 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Jun 29.1 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
20 Jun 29.2 °C 41 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Jun 27.2 °C 46 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Jun 26.7 °C 46 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 Jun 27.2 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Jun 27.6 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Jun 27.9 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Jun 27.8 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Jun after 27.2 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Jun after 27.6 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Jun after 27.6 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
30 Jun after 28.5 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Jul after 28.7 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Jul after 29.9 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Jul after 29.3 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Jul after 28.7 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Jul after 27.4 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Jul after 27.3 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jun 2026
After · 3 Jul 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 28 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak66 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM1068 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
91011121314151617181920212223242526272829
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 · 168Every 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 11 June 2026 and 26 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 6,217 hectares (62.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitwaba (6,261 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.