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Luiza fire, 15 June 2019 Luiza

Out · last detection 26 Jun 2019, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 15 June 2019 in Luiza, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,244 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 78th largest in Central Kasai since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 102 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2019, of 115.

Burnt area
5,244ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
15 Jun 2019 – 25 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
15 Jun
2019
Heat detections
194
in a single hotspot: 151 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jun 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jun25 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920212223242526

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
37km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,742 ha in 2016, 3,657 ha in 2017, 3,412 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,955 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Luiza where it started
    5,281 ha reached on 11 Jun
    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)
15 Jun 31.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Jun 31.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Jun 31.7 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jun 31.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jun 31.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Jun 32.4 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Jun 31.4 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jun 30.9 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jun 31.8 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jun 31.9 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Jun 32.2 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jun after 31.7 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jun after 33.0 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jun after 31.0 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jun after 31.6 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jun after 32.2 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Jul after 32.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Jul after 32.3 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Jul after 32.2 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Jul after 32.8 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Jul after 32.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jun 2019
After · 2 Jul 2019

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 · 194Every 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 Luiza fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 June 2019 and 25 June 2019: 11 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 5,244 hectares (52.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Luiza (5,281 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.