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Luilu fire, July 2023 Luilu

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2023, 11:53 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2023 in Luilu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,771 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Lomami since 2016 (of 66 with a page). Number 17 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2023, of 76.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Luilu · 2016Luilu · 2019Luilu · 2020Luilu · 2026

Burnt area
9,771ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
28 Jul 2023 – 20 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
28 Jul
2023
Heat detections
542
in a single hotspot: 147 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
294MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul20 Aug
21 Aug 2023

How it evolved, day by day

28 Jul 2023 · 13 MW · 2 29 Jul 2023 · 32 MW · 3 30 Jul 2023 · 6 MW · 2 31 Jul 2023 · 8 MW · 3 1 Aug 2023 · 33 MW · 5 2 Aug 2023 · 101 MW · 13 3 Aug 2023 · 14 MW · 4 4 Aug 2023 · 113 MW · 7 5 Aug 2023 · 451 MW · 44 6 Aug 2023 · 1,700 MW · 86 7 Aug 2023 · 246 MW · 42 8 Aug 2023 · 258 MW · 27 9 Aug 2023 · 1,858 MW · 73 10 Aug 2023 · 367 MW · 34 11 Aug 2023 · 117 MW · 17 12 Aug 2023 · 863 MW · 84 13 Aug 2023 · 793 MW · 57 14 Aug 2023 · 123 MW · 14 15 Aug 2023 · 17 MW · 6 16 Aug 2023 · 16 MW · 3 17 Aug 2023 · 5 MW · 1 18 Aug 2023 · 139 MW · 5 19 Aug 2023 · 13 MW · 2 20 Aug 2023 · 51 MW · 7 21 Aug 2023 · 8 MW · 1
28 Jul 1 Aug 5 Aug 9 Aug 13 Aug 17 Aug 21 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
44km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,366 ha in 2016, 7,869 ha in 2017, 11,177 ha in 2018, 8,187 ha in 2019, 7,621 ha in 2020, 5,642 ha in 2021, 6,943 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,787 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.2% of the area of London (98 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Luilu where it started
    9,842 ha reached on 28 Jul
    0.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
28 Jul 33.9 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jul 34.7 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jul 35.8 °C 15 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Jul 34.9 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Aug 34.5 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Aug 34.3 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Aug 33.8 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Aug 32.7 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Aug 32.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Aug 34.1 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Aug 34.4 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Aug 32.9 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Aug 34.3 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Aug 34.4 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Aug 33.7 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug 34.8 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Aug 34.7 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Aug 35.4 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug 32.3 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug 32.3 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Aug 33.8 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Aug 34.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug 32.9 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug 35.3 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 34.3 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Aug after 33.6 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Aug after 35.5 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Aug after 35.0 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Aug after 33.8 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Aug after 33.4 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug after 34.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug after 35.2 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug after 33.5 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Aug after 33.4 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2023
After · 27 Aug 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 9 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 88 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 54: 3.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak88 µg/m³
Days over the guideline17 days
PM10125 µg/m³
Optical depth1.75
1234567891011121314151617
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 542Every 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Luilu fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 July 2023 to 20 August 2023 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2023 to 14 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,771 hectares (97.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luilu (9,842 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Democratic Republic of the Congo (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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 14 August 2023 → 20 August 2023.
  2. Start date: 3 August 2023 → 28 July 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 August 2023 to 14 August 2023. 542 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.