Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Lodja fire, 4 July 2022 Lodja

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2022, 12:31 UTC

The fire started on 4 July 2022 in Lodja, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,438 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 106th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 40 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2022, of 106.

Burnt area
7,438ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
4 Jul 2022 – 14 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
4 Jul
2022
Heat detections
308
in a single hotspot: 91 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

456789101112131415

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
34km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.9 mm on 19 Jul.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,304 ha in 2016, 1,447 ha in 2018, 4,919 ha in 2019, 3,608 ha in 2020, 992 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,477 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lodja where it started
    7,490 ha reached on 1 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
4 Jul 34.2 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jul 33.5 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Jul 32.5 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Jul 34.2 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Jul 34.5 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Jul 34.4 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Jul 34.0 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Jul 32.5 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jul 34.0 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Jul 34.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Jul 34.0 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jul after 34.0 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Jul after 33.1 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Jul after 32.2 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul after 30.8 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Jul after 28.0 °C 58 % 28 km/h 8.9 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jun 2022
After · 21 Jul 2022

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 · 308Every 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 4 July 2022 and 14 July 2022: 11 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 7,438 hectares (74.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lodja (7,490 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.