Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Pweto fire, 23 June 2026 Pweto

Out · last detection 8 Jul 2026, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 23 June 2026 in Pweto, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,596 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 66th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 427 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.

Burnt area
5,596ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
23 Jun 2026 – 7 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
23 Jun
2026
Heat detections
131
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jul 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jun7 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272829301234578

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
42km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 981 ha in 2016, 870 ha in 2017, 855 ha in 2018, 817 ha in 2019, 351 ha in 2020, 864 ha in 2022, 13 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,656 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pweto where it started
    5,625 ha reached on 16 Jun
    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)
23 Jun 28.7 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Jun 29.5 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jun 29.0 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Jun 28.6 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Jun 28.1 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jun 29.5 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jun 29.2 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Jun 30.5 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Jul 29.9 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Jul 31.6 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Jul 30.6 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Jul 29.8 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jul 28.3 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Jul 27.9 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Jul 27.9 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Jul after 29.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Jul after 30.4 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jul after 31.2 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Jul after 31.4 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Jul after 30.8 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jul after 30.3 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Jul after 30.1 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jul after 28.5 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul after 27.6 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jul after 27.4 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jun 2026
After · 14 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 8 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak66 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1071 µg/m³
Optical depth0.74
2122232425262728293012345678910
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 · 131Every 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 Pweto fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 June 2026 and 7 July 2026: 15 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 5,596 hectares (56.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pweto (5,625 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.