Lodja fire, 26 July 2025 Lodja
The fire started on 26 July 2025 in Lodja, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,592 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 54th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 13 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 12,592ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 26 Jul 2025 – 5 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 26 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 649
- in a single hotspot: 59 MW
- Danger at start
- 4
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.2GW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 10 Aug.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,990 ha in 2016, 1,935 ha in 2017, 8,647 ha in 2018, 6,365 ha in 2019, 9,156 ha in 2020, 7,402 ha in 2021, 10,884 ha in 2022, 11,656 ha in 2023, 10,996 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,397 ha that had burned before.
- 9,511 ha Lodja fire, June 2022 116,070 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,470 ha Lodja fire, July 2023 121,496 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,978 ha Lodja fire, June 2024 100,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,602 ha Lodja fire, July 2018 85,816 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,882 ha Lodja fire, June 2016 41,432 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,620 ha Lodja fire, July 2021 6,024 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,394 ha Lodja fire, June 2017 7,683 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,321 ha Lodja fire, June 2020 42,778 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Lodja where it started12,675 ha reached on 19 Jul1.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jul | 32.2 °C | 48 % | 22 km/h | 3.6 mm | Very low 4 |
| 20 Jul | 31.3 °C | 52 % | 28 km/h | 3.9 mm | Very low 3 |
| 21 Jul | 30.7 °C | 49 % | 24 km/h | 0.4 mm | Low 8 |
| 22 Jul | 30.1 °C | 54 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 23 Jul | 29.4 °C | 63 % | 23 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 6 |
| 24 Jul | 31.0 °C | 50 % | 18 km/h | 1.5 mm | Low 7 |
| 25 Jul | 28.9 °C | 58 % | 31 km/h | 1.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 26 Jul | 29.6 °C | 56 % | 33 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 6 |
| 27 Jul | 30.5 °C | 52 % | 22 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 28 Jul | 31.1 °C | 47 % | 28 km/h | 1.2 mm | Low 10 |
| 29 Jul | 32.6 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 30 Jul | 34.9 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Jul | 34.8 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Aug | 32.8 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Aug | 32.6 °C | 37 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Aug | 33.4 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Aug | 33.8 °C | 28 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 5 Aug | 32.8 °C | 35 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Aug after | 33.5 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 7 Aug after | 33.1 °C | 46 % | 26 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 8 Aug after | 34.4 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 26 |
| 9 Aug after | 31.5 °C | 48 % | 24 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 47 % | 26 km/h | 4.2 mm | Low 5 |
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 25 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 149 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 105: 7.0 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 · 649Every 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 26 July 2025 and 5 August 2025: 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 12,592 hectares (125.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lodja (12,675 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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
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.