Lodja fire, 18 June 2026 Lodja
The fire started on 18 June 2026 in Lodja, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 47,196 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 12th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 18 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2026, of 523.
- Burnt area
- 47,196ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 26days
- 18 Jun 2026 – 13 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 18 Jun
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 1,055
- in a single hotspot: 190 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 11.3GW
- 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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.6 mm on 15 Jul.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25,430 ha in 2016, 4,940 ha in 2017, 15,423 ha in 2018, 10,640 ha in 2019, 19,286 ha in 2020, 5,846 ha in 2021, 27,726 ha in 2022, 33,284 ha in 2023, 25,734 ha in 2024, 21,786 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 44,968 ha that had burned before.
- 14,470 ha Lodja fire, July 2023 81,160 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,380 ha Lodja fire, June 2024 21,888 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,774 ha Lodja fire, July 2023 21,982 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,059 ha Lodja fire, July 2025 17,868 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,584 ha Lodja fire, June 2016 30,512 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,007 ha Lodja fire, June 2018 7,346 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,495 ha Lodja fire, June 2019 6,862 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,265 ha Lodja fire, July 2025 9,615 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Lodja where it started47,529 ha reached on 14 Jun3.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Jun | 33.4 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 15 Jun | 31.7 °C | 39 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 16 Jun | 29.8 °C | 56 % | 24 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 17 Jun | 32.0 °C | 44 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 18 Jun | 32.4 °C | 38 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 19 Jun | 32.0 °C | 42 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 20 Jun | 33.1 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Jun | 34.3 °C | 27 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Jun | 32.8 °C | 31 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 23 Jun | 31.9 °C | 35 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 24 Jun | 32.3 °C | 33 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 25 Jun | 34.1 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 26 Jun | 33.5 °C | 30 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 27 Jun | 34.2 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Jun | 33.5 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jun | 33.5 °C | 27 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 30 Jun | 34.6 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Jul | 34.0 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Jul | 32.7 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Jul | 34.4 °C | 31 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Jul | 34.5 °C | 27 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Jul | 34.9 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Jul | 35.5 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 7 Jul | 32.8 °C | 27 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Jul | 34.5 °C | 27 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Jul | 33.7 °C | 33 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Jul | 33.6 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Jul | 32.5 °C | 42 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Jul | 33.7 °C | 33 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Jul | 35.0 °C | 30 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Jul after | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Jul after | 30.6 °C | 52 % | 26 km/h | 4.6 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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 9 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 457 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 236: 16 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 · 1,055Every 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 18 June 2026 and 13 July 2026: 26 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 47,196 hectares (472.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lodja (47,529 ha, 3.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.