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Lubefu fire, 9 July 2018 Lubefu

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2018, 12:18 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2018 in Lubefu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,432 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 139th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 64 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
6,432ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
9 Jul 2018 – 26 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
9 Jul
2018
Heat detections
319
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul26 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181920212223242526

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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 2 Aug.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,217 ha in 2016, 2,363 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,393 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lubefu where it started
    6,476 ha reached on 8 Jul
    0.5 %

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)
9 Jul 33.6 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jul 34.2 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jul 33.5 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Jul 33.5 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Jul 33.1 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Jul 33.5 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jul 33.9 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Jul 32.9 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Jul 32.5 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Jul 32.2 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jul 32.0 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jul 33.6 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jul 34.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul 34.4 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jul 34.6 °C 20 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Jul 33.7 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jul 33.7 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jul 29.4 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jul after 31.6 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Jul after 29.0 °C 49 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Jul after 31.4 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Jul after 29.8 °C 53 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
31 Jul after 30.5 °C 50 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 21
1 Aug after 29.8 °C 50 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm High 22
2 Aug after 30.8 °C 53 % 27 km/h 2.1 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jul 2018
After · 2 Aug 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 · 319Every 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 Lubefu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 July 2018 and 26 July 2018: 18 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 6,432 hectares (64.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lubefu (6,476 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.