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Lubao fire, 3 July 2018 Lubao

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2018, 10:56 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2018 in Lubao, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,322 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Lomami since 2016 (of 66 with a page). Number 69 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
6,322ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
3 Jul 2018 – 9 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
3 Jul
2018
Heat detections
156
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

3456789

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
50km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,361 ha in 2016, 3,401 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,638 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lubao where it started
    6,359 ha reached on 3 Jul
    0.3 %

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)
3 Jul 34.4 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Jul 35.1 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Jul 34.2 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Jul 33.5 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jul 34.0 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Jul 34.3 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Jul 35.4 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Jul after 36.1 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Jul after 35.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Jul after 36.0 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jul after 35.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Jul after 36.3 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jul after 36.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Jul after 34.9 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jul after 33.8 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Jul after 33.7 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Jul after 33.8 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jun 2018
After · 16 Jul 2018

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 · 156Every 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 Lubao fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 July 2018 and 9 July 2018: 7 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 6,322 hectares (63.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lubao (6,359 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.

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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.