Lodja fire, May 2022 Lodja, Katako-Kombe
The fire started on 31 May 2022 in Lodja, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,821 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 48th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 5 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2022, of 106.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 14,821ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 31 May 2022 – 16 Jun 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 31 May
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 796
- in a single hotspot: 175 MW
- Danger at start
- 6
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 655MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 20 Jun.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12,397 ha in 2016, 11,381 ha in 2017, 11,615 ha in 2018, 10,084 ha in 2019, 14,511 ha in 2020, 10,397 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,764 ha that had burned before.
- 7,829 ha Lodja fire, May 2018 23,308 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,574 ha Lodja fire, June 2021 9,491 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,137 ha Katako-Kombe fire, May 2017 9,736 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,561 ha Lodja fire, June 2020 42,241 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,445 ha Lodja fire, June 2016 7,411 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,176 ha Katako-Kombe fire, May 2016 7,007 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 95 ha Katako-Kombe fire, May 2019 7,996 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Lodja where it started8,175 ha reached on 1 Jun0.6 %
-
6,746 ha reached on 31 May0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 May | 31.6 °C | 44 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 6 |
| 1 Jun | 31.3 °C | 46 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 7 |
| 2 Jun | 32.2 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 3 Jun | 31.0 °C | 40 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 4 Jun | 32.8 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 5 Jun | 32.8 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 6 Jun | 32.4 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 7 Jun | 32.5 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 8 Jun | 32.1 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 9 Jun | 32.3 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 10 Jun | 31.2 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 11 Jun | 33.0 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 12 Jun | 33.2 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Jun | 32.2 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 14 Jun | 32.6 °C | 35 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Jun | 32.4 °C | 44 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 16 Jun | 34.2 °C | 38 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 17 Jun after | 33.9 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Jun after | 28.1 °C | 56 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 19 Jun after | 30.4 °C | 46 % | 22 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 20 Jun after | 28.4 °C | 55 % | 22 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 6 |
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.
Detections table · 796Every 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 Lodja fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 May 2022 to 16 June 2022 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 June 2022 to 16 June 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,821 hectares (148.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lodja (8,175 ha, 0.6 %); Katako-Kombe (6,746 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 June 2022 to 16 June 2022. 796 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.
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.