Lodja fire, 13 June 2024 Lodja
The fire started on 13 June 2024 in Lodja, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 35,506 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 20th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 9 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.
- Burnt area
- 35,506ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 13 Jun 2024 – 2 Jul 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 13 Jun
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 2,758
- in a single hotspot: 229 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 32.8GW
- sum of detected power
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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25,925 ha in 2016, 8,748 ha in 2017, 8,251 ha in 2018, 20,030 ha in 2019, 12,974 ha in 2020, 15,494 ha in 2021, 28,684 ha in 2022, 32,984 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 34,405 ha that had burned before.
- 23,717 ha Lodja fire, July 2023 81,160 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 22,256 ha Lodja fire, June 2016 43,985 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,118 ha Lodja fire, June 2022 12,196 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,940 ha Lodja fire, July 2023 7,634 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,198 ha Lodja fire, June 2020 5,844 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,402 ha Lodja fire, July 2022 5,482 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 798 ha Lodja fire, June 2022 6,585 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 541 ha Lodja fire, July 2018 6,198 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Lodja where it started35,758 ha reached on 7 Jun2.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Jun | 34.8 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Jun | 35.8 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Jun | 35.8 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Jun | 34.4 °C | 23 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Jun | 32.9 °C | 33 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Jun | 34.1 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Jun | 34.9 °C | 28 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 20 Jun | 36.3 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 21 Jun | 36.5 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 22 Jun | 36.7 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Jun | 35.5 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 24 Jun | 35.6 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 25 Jun | 35.7 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 26 Jun | 35.9 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 27 Jun | 35.5 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 28 Jun | 36.1 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 29 Jun | 36.0 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 30 Jun | 35.4 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 1 Jul | 36.7 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 2 Jul | 36.5 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 3 Jul after | 34.8 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Jul after | 36.4 °C | 16 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Jul after | 35.4 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 6 Jul after | 35.2 °C | 18 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Jul after | 34.7 °C | 25 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 Jul after | 32.4 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Jul after | 34.1 °C | 29 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Jul after | 34.6 °C | 23 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Jul after | 35.2 °C | 23 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Jul after | 34.2 °C | 32 % | 22 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.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 30 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 401 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 194: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 2,758Every 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?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 June 2024 and 2 July 2024: 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 35,506 hectares (355.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lodja (35,758 ha, 2.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very 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
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.