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Kapanga fire, June 2017 Kapanga, Luiza

Out · last detection 14 Jul 2017, 11:45 UTC

The fire started on 24 June 2017 in Kapanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,581 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Lualaba since 2016 (of 91 with a page). Number 8 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2017, of 138.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Luiza · 2019Luiza · 2026

Burnt area
14,581ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
24 Jun 2017 – 14 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
24 Jun
2017
Heat detections
559
in a single hotspot: 186 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
341MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jun14 Jul
14 Jul 2017

How it evolved, day by day

24 Jun 2017 · 43 MW · 9 25 Jun 2017 · 68 MW · 21 26 Jun 2017 · 47 MW · 4 27 Jun 2017 · 191 MW · 18 28 Jun 2017 · 39 MW · 5 1 Jul 2017 · 379 MW · 38 2 Jul 2017 · 1,113 MW · 89 3 Jul 2017 · 1,342 MW · 109 4 Jul 2017 · 854 MW · 97 5 Jul 2017 · 507 MW · 83 6 Jul 2017 · 1,291 MW · 48 7 Jul 2017 · 140 MW · 15 8 Jul 2017 · 34 MW · 8 9 Jul 2017 · 51 MW · 7 10 Jul 2017 · 2 MW · 2 11 Jul 2017 · 11 MW · 2 13 Jul 2017 · 1 MW · 1 14 Jul 2017 · 29 MW · 3
24 Jun 27 Jun 2 Jul 3 Jul 5 Jul 8 Jul 11 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
46km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,135 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9.2% of the area of London (146 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Kapanga where it started
    11,775 ha reached on 24 Jun
    0.5 %
  2. Luiza
    2,886 ha reached on 25 Jun
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
24 Jun 32.2 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jun 32.9 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jun 33.7 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jun 32.6 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jun 31.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jun 30.7 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jun 31.9 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Jul 32.4 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Jul 31.8 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Jul 33.2 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Jul 32.0 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Jul 31.1 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Jul 30.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Jul 27.9 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
8 Jul 32.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Jul 32.3 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Jul 33.0 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Jul 30.6 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Jul 28.8 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
13 Jul 31.6 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Jul 31.0 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Jul after 32.2 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Jul after 32.1 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Jul after 33.4 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Jul after 32.1 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jul after 32.1 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Jul after 33.2 °C 17 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Jul after 32.4 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jul after 32.8 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jul after 31.1 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
24 Jul after 32.1 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jun 2017
After · 21 Jul 2017

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 · 559Every 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kapanga fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 June 2017 to 14 July 2017 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 July 2017 to 9 July 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,581 hectares (145.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kapanga (11,775 ha, 0.5 %); Luiza (2,886 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 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 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 9 July 2017 → 14 July 2017.
  2. Start date: 1 July 2017 → 24 June 2017.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 July 2017 to 9 July 2017. 559 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.