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Idiofa fire, July 2022 Idiofa

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2022, 12:06 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2022 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,744 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 145th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 48 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2022, of 106.

Burnt area
6,744ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
26 Jul 2022 – 11 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
26 Jul
2022
Heat detections
104
in a single hotspot: 89 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
896MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

261112

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
35km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 18 Aug.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,773 ha in 2016, 4,095 ha in 2017, 2,801 ha in 2018, 2,315 ha in 2019, 3,334 ha in 2020, 1,910 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,020 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Idiofa where it started
    6,784 ha reached on 25 Jul
    0.4 %

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)
26 Jul 34.7 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jul 35.9 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jul 34.3 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jul 33.8 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Jul 33.8 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Jul 34.3 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Aug 34.6 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Aug 32.9 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
3 Aug 32.8 °C 42 % 22 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 16
4 Aug 34.4 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Aug 33.3 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
6 Aug 34.2 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Aug 35.7 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug 35.8 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Aug 36.3 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Aug 36.0 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug 37.6 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Aug after 35.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug after 35.4 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug after 34.0 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Aug after 35.0 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Aug after 33.1 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug after 33.3 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
18 Aug after 34.6 °C 37 % 25 km/h 2.5 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jul 2022
After · 18 Aug 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 104Every 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 Idiofa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 July 2022 and 11 August 2022: 17 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 6,744 hectares (67.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Idiofa (6,784 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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

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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.