How long did the Idiofa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2024 and 16 August 2024: 14 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 8,548 hectares (85.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Idiofa (8,598 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 · 2024-08-03 → 2024-08-16

Idiofa fire, 3 August 2024 Idiofa

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2024, 12:25 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2024 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,548 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 95th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 39 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.

Burnt area: 8,548ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 3 Aug 2024 – 16 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 3 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 485; in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 5.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112131516

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

35km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 17 Aug.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,864 ha in 2016, 5,643 ha in 2017, 3,078 ha in 2018, 5,564 ha in 2020, 2,549 ha in 2021, 1,707 ha in 2022, 1,993 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,734 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Idiofa where it started

8,598 ha reached on 30 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)
3 Aug	35.1 °C	30 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Aug	34.5 °C	32 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
5 Aug	34.0 °C	34 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Aug	35.3 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
7 Aug	34.9 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Aug	35.3 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
9 Aug	35.0 °C	31 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
10 Aug	34.2 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
11 Aug	30.5 °C	58 %	35 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 19
12 Aug	33.2 °C	40 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 26
13 Aug	33.8 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.5 mm	High 28
14 Aug	32.8 °C	41 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Aug	33.5 °C	42 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
16 Aug	34.5 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.4 mm	High 27
17 Aug after	32.1 °C	45 %	31 km/h	2.4 mm	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Jul 2024

After · 23 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 16 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 316 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 164: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak316 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM10452 µg/m³

Optical depth4.39

WHO 15

12345678910111213141516171819

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 · 485Every 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 3 August 2024 and 16 August 2024: 14 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 8,548 hectares (85.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Idiofa (8,598 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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