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Luilu fire, July 2020 Luilu

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2020, 12:05 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2020 in Luilu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,760 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Lomami since 2016 (of 66 with a page). Number 50 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
8,760ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
23 Jul 2020 – 5 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
23 Jul
2020
Heat detections
632
in a single hotspot: 191 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul5 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

232425262728293031123456

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,485 ha in 2016, 7,365 ha in 2017, 9,692 ha in 2018, 7,206 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,506 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luilu where it started
    8,824 ha reached on 16 Jul
    0.8 %

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)
23 Jul 30.9 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jul 30.5 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Jul 30.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jul 30.6 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jul 30.0 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jul 29.5 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul 29.5 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul 31.6 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jul 31.8 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Aug 32.5 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Aug 31.6 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Aug 31.9 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug 31.6 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Aug 30.7 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Aug after 31.6 °C 30 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug after 29.6 °C 37 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Aug after 31.8 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Aug after 30.6 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Aug after 31.2 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Aug after 31.0 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug after 31.0 °C 29 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Aug after 32.4 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug after 30.9 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Aug after 30.4 °C 28 % 20 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.

Before · 16 Jul 2020
After · 12 Aug 2020

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 · 632Every 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 Luilu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2020 and 5 August 2020: 14 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 8,760 hectares (87.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luilu (8,824 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.