Oshwe fire, August 2025 Oshwe, Idiofa
The fire started on 13 August 2025 in Oshwe, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,178 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Mai-Ndombe since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 58 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 7,178ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 13 Aug 2025 – 30 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 13 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 434
- in a single hotspot: 130 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.7GW
- 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 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 8 Sept.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,589 ha in 2016, 5,531 ha in 2017, 2,905 ha in 2018, 1,315 ha in 2019, 2,577 ha in 2020, 1,330 ha in 2021, 3,011 ha in 2023, 5,379 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,595 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Oshwe where it started7,149 ha reached on 8 Aug0.2 %
-
83 ha reached on 14 Aug0.0 %
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 Aug | 30.3 °C | 53 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 23 |
| 14 Aug | 31.6 °C | 44 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 15 Aug | 31.9 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Aug | 33.4 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Aug | 33.8 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Aug | 33.2 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Aug | 31.8 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Aug | 34.8 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Aug | 32.4 °C | 38 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Aug | 33.3 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Aug | 34.5 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Aug | 33.5 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Aug | 33.4 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 26 Aug | 33.5 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 29 |
| 27 Aug | 33.1 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 3.7 mm | Low 8 |
| 28 Aug | 32.6 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 1.3 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 29 Aug | 34.8 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Aug | 34.4 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 31 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 43 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Sept after | 35.1 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Sept after | 33.9 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 39 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Sept after | 34.3 °C | 42 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Sept after | 34.0 °C | 43 % | 35 km/h | 1.9 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 21 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 215 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 135: 9.0 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 · 434Every 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 Oshwe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 August 2025 and 30 August 2025: 18 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 7,178 hectares (71.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Oshwe (7,149 ha, 0.2 %); Idiofa (83 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.
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.