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Lodja fire, 30 May 2018 Lodja, Katako-Kombe

Out · last detection 19 Jun 2018, 12:12 UTC

The fire started on 30 May 2018 in Lodja, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,195 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 47th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 13 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
15,195ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
30 May 2018 – 18 Jun 2018
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
30 May
2018
Heat detections
886
in a single hotspot: 155 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
10.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jun 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 May18 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

303112345678910111213141516171819

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
32km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.8 mm on 21 Jun.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,102 ha in 2016, 6,079 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,456 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lodja where it started
    14,211 ha reached on 29 May
    1.1 %
  2. Katako-Kombe
    1,082 ha reached on 30 May
    0.0 %

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)
29 May 28.9 °C 67 % 30 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 1
30 May 29.0 °C 64 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 2
31 May 29.6 °C 62 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 3
1 Jun 30.6 °C 54 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 5
2 Jun 30.9 °C 54 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
3 Jun 30.9 °C 49 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
4 Jun 28.9 °C 60 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Low 8
5 Jun 30.3 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
6 Jun 29.8 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
7 Jun 30.0 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
8 Jun 30.9 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
9 Jun 31.6 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
10 Jun 31.7 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
11 Jun 32.9 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
12 Jun 33.0 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
13 Jun 33.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
14 Jun 32.6 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Jun 33.5 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
16 Jun 33.1 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Jun 32.8 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Jun 31.6 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Jun after 29.8 °C 55 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
20 Jun after 30.0 °C 49 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
21 Jun after 27.5 °C 68 % 26 km/h 7.8 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 May 2018
After · 25 Jun 2018

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 · 886Every 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 Lodja fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 May 2018 and 18 June 2018: 20 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 15,195 hectares (152.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lodja (14,211 ha, 1.1 %); Katako-Kombe (1,082 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.

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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.