How long did the Mitwaba fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2026 to 3 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 August 2026 to 2 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,866 hectares (78.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Mitwaba (7,924 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2026-08-19 → 2026-09-03

Mitwaba fire, 19 August 2026 Mitwaba

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2026, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2026 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,866 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 25th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 256 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area: 7,866ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 19 Aug 2026 – 3 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 19 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 118; in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 3 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug3 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

19222728293031123

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

42km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 5 Sept.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 876 ha in 2016, 4,064 ha in 2017, 2,542 ha in 2018, 3,061 ha in 2019, 2,319 ha in 2020, 3,618 ha in 2021, 2,057 ha in 2022, 2,222 ha in 2023, 4,303 ha in 2024, 2,785 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,734 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Mitwaba where it started

7,924 ha reached on 19 Aug

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)
19 Aug	27.0 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
20 Aug	26.8 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
21 Aug	27.0 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
22 Aug	27.9 °C	18 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
23 Aug	28.7 °C	20 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
24 Aug	28.0 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
25 Aug	27.5 °C	31 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Aug	27.8 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Aug	28.9 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 38
28 Aug	27.9 °C	28 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
29 Aug	28.0 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 Aug	28.6 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
31 Aug	29.8 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
1 Sept	29.6 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
2 Sept	29.2 °C	24 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Sept	29.2 °C	26 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
4 Sept after	29.6 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Sept after	27.1 °C	38 %	25 km/h	1.7 mm	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Aug 2026

After · 10 Sept 2026

Before After

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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 100 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak100 µg/m³

Days over the guideline21 days

PM10103 µg/m³

Optical depth2.09

WHO 15

171819202122232425262728293031123456

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 · 118Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mitwaba fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2026 to 3 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 August 2026 to 2 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,866 hectares (78.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Mitwaba (7,924 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned