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CD · 2023 yearbook

Wildfires in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023

76 fires larger than 5,000 hectares in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023, with 831,625 hectares burned according to their perimeters. Here is the whole year: what the official record says, when and where it burned and what the weather was like.

Only fires of 5,000 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the entry totals, but they are in the GWIS yearly series.

The year in a few sentences

  1. According to Copernicus GWIS, 41,110,881 hectares burned in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023: 94% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (43,903,809 ha).

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week was 2 July to 8 July: 3,463,463 hectares burned in seven days, 8% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the Lodja fire, which started on 5 July 2023 and burned 121,496 hectares: 15% of the area of the year's 76 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

  4. The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 12 August 2023: a Fire Weather Index of 77 (very extreme on the EFFIS scale) at the Sandoa fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

    WorldFires · ERA5 · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
41.1 M ha
Copernicus GWIS · ×0.9 the average
Fires with a page
76
831,625 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
121k ha
Lodja · 5 Jul
Highest FWI
77 Very extreme
12 Aug · Sandoa

Map of the year

Copernicus GWIS
One circle per fire, sized by its area. Tap one to open its page.

Month by month

Hectares within the perimeters by the month the fire started. Tap a month to see it on the map.

Week by week, against other years

Copernicus GWIS

Cumulative burned area in 2023 over the lowest and highest of each week in the record since 2012, and its average. The bars below show what burned each week. Tap the chart to see a week. The average and the band are the Copernicus GWIS climatology for 2012–2025, which includes 2023 itself.

0 16.9 M 33.8 M 50.6 M Worst week · 3.5 M ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2023 average 2012–2025 lowest and highest Hectares each week

Every year since 2012

Copernicus GWIS

Hectares burned per year in the official record. Tap a year to open its yearbook.

2023: 41,110,881 ha Average of the other years: 43,903,809 ha

Cite this

Markdown version

Copy the sentences with their source and link. WorldFires data are CC BY 4.0: credit WorldFires and the original source.

- According to Copernicus GWIS, 41,110,881 hectares burned in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023: 94% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (43,903,809 ha).
- The worst week was 2 July to 8 July: 3,463,463 hectares burned in seven days, 8% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the Lodja fire, which started on 5 July 2023 and burned 121,496 hectares: 15% of the area of the year's 76 fires with a page.
- The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 12 August 2023: a Fire Weather Index of 77 (very extreme on the EFFIS scale) at the Sandoa fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/congo-kinshasa/2023 (accessed 15 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires, WorldFires · ERA5.

Fires of 2023, largest first · 76

Burned area in 2023 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 60,703,069 ha burned in 2023: rank 7 of 7 complete years (1 = the most burned). The average of those years is 63,454,773 ha.

The area the Sentinel-3 satellite sees burned each month, separate from the fire pages. It is the same source and the same method every year, so years can be compared with each other. It counts everything that burns, including crop and pasture burning, which is why it does not match the fire pages or the official statistics.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Where most burned in 2023

  1. Lualaba 9,240,957 ha
  2. Haut-Katanga 9,238,867 ha
  3. Haut-Lomami 8,731,392 ha
  4. Tanganyika 8,024,966 ha
  5. Kwango 5,127,912 ha
  6. Lomami 3,451,794 ha
  7. Upper Uele 2,113,823 ha
  8. Kongo-Central 2,052,415 ha
  9. Maniema 1,789,095 ha
  10. Kwilu 1,706,200 ha

The whole series since 2018

Source: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, “Burnt Area 2018-present (raster 300 m), global, monthly – version 4”, monthly Sentinel-3 product, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34. Generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information; worldfires.org adds up, by country and region, the true area of the 300 m cells where a burn was detected. Latest month published: May 2026. Product page · Methodology

Sources and limits

Fire-page areas are satellite-measured perimeters and may differ from official statistics. The yearly and weekly record is the Copernicus GWIS estimate. The FWI is our own calculation from ERA5 at each fire's location: it is not an official danger warning.

Perimeters: Copernicus EFFIS and GWIS (and MTBS, NIFC or NBAC in North America). Hotspots: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS). Weather: Copernicus ERA5 via Open-Meteo. How it is calculated