Idiofa fire, 28 July 2024 Idiofa
The fire started on 28 July 2024 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,800 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 72th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 33 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.
- Burnt area
- 9,800ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 28 Jul 2024 – 15 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 28 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 507
- in a single hotspot: 151 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 7.0GW
- sum of detected power
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. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 29 Aug.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,090 ha in 2016, 6,364 ha in 2017, 3,798 ha in 2018, 1,422 ha in 2019, 5,992 ha in 2020, 2,275 ha in 2021, 1,549 ha in 2022, 1,990 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,102 ha that had burned before.
- 3,480 ha Idiofa fire, July 2018 7,160 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,440 ha Idiofa fire, July 2017 5,739 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,079 ha Idiofa fire, July 2016 7,928 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,833 ha Idiofa fire, July 2020 15,602 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 63 ha Idiofa fire, July 2019 8,090 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Idiofa where it started9,867 ha reached on 30 Jul0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jul | 34.7 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 29 Jul | 32.5 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 30 Jul | 33.5 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Jul | 35.1 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Aug | 33.4 °C | 40 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Aug | 32.2 °C | 43 % | 19 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Aug | 34.3 °C | 33 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Aug | 33.8 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Aug | 33.2 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Aug | 34.4 °C | 32 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Aug | 33.6 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Aug | 35.4 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Aug | 34.2 °C | 32 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Aug | 34.1 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Aug | 31.9 °C | 51 % | 34 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 12 Aug | 32.0 °C | 43 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Aug | 32.8 °C | 42 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Aug | 31.2 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Aug | 32.7 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Aug after | 34.0 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 17 Aug after | 31.5 °C | 50 % | 26 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 27 |
| 18 Aug after | 31.7 °C | 44 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 19 Aug after | 34.0 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Aug after | 31.8 °C | 42 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 42 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 37 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Aug after | 34.0 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Aug after | 34.4 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Aug after | 34.9 °C | 29 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Aug after | 36.6 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 58 % | 34 km/h | 2.6 mm | Low 8 |
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 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).
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 · 507Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Idiofa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 July 2024 and 15 August 2024: 19 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 9,800 hectares (98.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Idiofa (9,867 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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
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.