Bukama fire, 1 August 2023 Bukama
The fire started on 1 August 2023 in Bukama, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,296 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 145th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 64 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023, of 76.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Bukama · 2016Bukama · 2022Kamina · 2026Kamina · 2024
- Burnt area
- 5,296ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 1 Aug 2023 – 3 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 1 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 123
- in a single hotspot: 170 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 921MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,472 ha in 2016, 1,139 ha in 2017, 1,796 ha in 2018, 986 ha in 2019, 206 ha in 2020, 2,674 ha in 2021, 1,929 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,074 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Bukama where it started5,323 ha reached on 28 Jul0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | 33.3 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 2 Aug | 32.2 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Aug | 31.7 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Aug after | 31.5 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Aug after | 32.4 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Aug after | 32.8 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Aug after | 33.0 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 10 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 19 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Aug after | 33.8 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Aug after | 33.5 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
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 30 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 150 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 93: 6.2 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 · 123Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 18,210 haKamina15 August 2026 · 20 days · 13 km away
- 12,071 haKamina7 August 2024 · 6 days · 18 km away
- 19,846 haBukama4 August 2016 · 11 days · 19 km away
- 9,354 haKamina30 July 2016 · 8 days · 23 km away
- 14,847 haBukama16 August 2026 · 5 days · 27 km away
- 10,289 haKamina22 July 2019 · 7 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bukama fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2023 and 3 August 2023: 3 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 5,296 hectares (53.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bukama (5,323 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Democratic Republic of the Congo (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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 123 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.