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Lodja fire, 26 June 2018 Lodja, Katako-Kombe

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2018, 12:37 UTC

The fire started on 26 June 2018 in Lodja, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 85,816 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). The largest in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2018, of 128.

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Suggestions: Lodja · 2023Lodja · 2026Lodja · 2020Lodja · 2022

Burnt area
85,816ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
26 Jun 2018 – 25 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
26 Jun
2018
Heat detections
4,812
in a single hotspot: 177 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
2.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jun25 Jul
25 Jul 2018

How it evolved, day by day

26 Jun 2018 · 99 MW · 13 28 Jun 2018 · 6 MW · 1 29 Jun 2018 · 152 MW · 17 30 Jun 2018 · 15 MW · 3 2 Jul 2018 · 646 MW · 46 3 Jul 2018 · 90 MW · 15 4 Jul 2018 · 131 MW · 22 5 Jul 2018 · 551 MW · 104 6 Jul 2018 · 10,830 MW · 968 7 Jul 2018 · 15,074 MW · 987 8 Jul 2018 · 5,176 MW · 401 9 Jul 2018 · 4,759 MW · 428 10 Jul 2018 · 3,524 MW · 355 11 Jul 2018 · 3,240 MW · 290 12 Jul 2018 · 3,751 MW · 316 13 Jul 2018 · 841 MW · 82 14 Jul 2018 · 231 MW · 32 15 Jul 2018 · 216 MW · 26 16 Jul 2018 · 13 MW · 3 17 Jul 2018 · 14 MW · 5 18 Jul 2018 · 117 MW · 21 19 Jul 2018 · 325 MW · 46 20 Jul 2018 · 366 MW · 53 21 Jul 2018 · 1,204 MW · 167 22 Jul 2018 · 921 MW · 114 23 Jul 2018 · 1,872 MW · 196 24 Jul 2018 · 831 MW · 90 25 Jul 2018 · 73 MW · 11
26 Jun 2 Jul 6 Jul 7 Jul 10 Jul 14 Jul 18 Jul 22 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

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 27 Jul.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 67,597 ha in 2016, 33,917 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 66,085 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 54% of the area of London (858 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. Lodja where it started
    84,793 ha reached on 26 Jun
    6.8 %
  2. Katako-Kombe
    1,587 ha reached on 26 Jun
    0.1 %

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)
26 Jun 29.5 °C 58 % 28 km/h 9.9 mm Very low 1
27 Jun 31.1 °C 53 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 4
28 Jun 29.7 °C 50 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
29 Jun 30.6 °C 48 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
30 Jun 27.3 °C 69 % 26 km/h 3.1 mm Very low 1
1 Jul 29.6 °C 57 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 4
2 Jul 31.0 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
3 Jul 31.5 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
4 Jul 30.2 °C 50 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
5 Jul 31.2 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
6 Jul 32.6 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Jul 33.2 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Jul 33.4 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Jul 34.5 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Jul 34.6 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Jul 32.9 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Jul 33.4 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Jul 33.0 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Jul 33.4 °C 30 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Jul 30.5 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Jul 32.5 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
17 Jul 32.9 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Jul 33.2 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Jul 32.5 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Jul 34.2 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Jul 35.4 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Jul 35.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jul 36.2 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul 34.9 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jul 34.9 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul after 29.8 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Jul after 31.3 °C 45 % 27 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jun 2018
After · 1 Aug 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 · 4,812Every 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 Lodja fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 June 2018 to 25 July 2018 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 July 2018 to 18 July 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 85,816 hectares (858.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lodja (84,793 ha, 6.8 %); Katako-Kombe (1,587 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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: 18 July 2018 → 25 July 2018.
  2. Start date: 3 July 2018 → 26 June 2018.

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 3 July 2018 to 18 July 2018. 4,812 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.