How long did the Idiofa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2024 and 13 August 2024: 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 5,706 hectares (57.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Idiofa (5,744 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2024-07-27 → 2024-08-13

Idiofa fire, 27 July 2024 Idiofa

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2024, 11:41 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2024 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,706 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 197th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 100 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.

Burnt area: 5,706ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 27 Jul 2024 – 13 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 27 Jul; 2024
Heat detections: 298; in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

3031123456789101213

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

36km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 17 Aug.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,072 ha in 2016, 2,275 ha in 2017, 209 ha in 2018, 3,797 ha in 2019, 4,885 ha in 2020, 1,605 ha in 2021, 2,036 ha in 2022, 4,506 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,191 ha that had burned before.

512 ha Idiofa fire, July 2020 6,498 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Idiofa where it started

5,744 ha reached on 30 Jul

0.3 %

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)
27 Jul	34.8 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
28 Jul	34.5 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
29 Jul	32.6 °C	41 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
30 Jul	33.6 °C	39 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
31 Jul	35.1 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
1 Aug	33.7 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
2 Aug	32.5 °C	41 %	21 km/h	0.3 mm	High 29
3 Aug	34.6 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
4 Aug	33.9 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
5 Aug	33.5 °C	36 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
6 Aug	34.6 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
7 Aug	34.0 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Aug	35.2 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
9 Aug	34.2 °C	33 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
10 Aug	34.1 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
11 Aug	31.4 °C	53 %	36 km/h	0.8 mm	High 21
12 Aug	32.5 °C	42 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
13 Aug	33.2 °C	40 %	25 km/h	0.4 mm	High 27
14 Aug after	32.0 °C	44 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
15 Aug after	33.0 °C	43 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Aug after	34.1 °C	39 %	27 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
17 Aug after	31.7 °C	51 %	27 km/h	1.3 mm	Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Jul 2024

After · 20 Aug 2024

Before After

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 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 297 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 160: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak297 µg/m³

Days over the guideline23 days

PM10425 µg/m³

Optical depth3.28

WHO 15

2526272829303112345678910111213141516

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 · 298Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Idiofa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 July 2024 and 13 August 2024: 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 5,706 hectares (57.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Idiofa (5,744 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned