Luiza fire, June 2024 Luiza
The fire started on 8 June 2024 in Luiza, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,040 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 21th largest in Central Kasai since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 31 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.
- Burnt area
- 10,040ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 8 Jun 2024 – 16 Jun 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 8 Jun
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 428
- in a single hotspot: 158 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.3GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,159 ha in 2016, 6,610 ha in 2017, 4,136 ha in 2018, 6,724 ha in 2019, 3,631 ha in 2020, 5,824 ha in 2021, 4,163 ha in 2022, 3,117 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,705 ha that had burned before.
- 3,925 ha Luiza fire, June 2017 9,057 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,763 ha Luiza fire, June 2021 5,730 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,729 ha Luiza fire, June 2022 8,146 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,891 ha Luiza fire, July 2019 9,629 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,472 ha Luiza fire, June 2017 6,101 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,237 ha Luiza fire, July 2016 7,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,918 ha Luiza fire, June 2021 5,842 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 165 ha Luiza fire, June 2016 8,908 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Luiza where it started10,115 ha reached on 8 Jun0.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Jun | 32.6 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 9 Jun | 31.7 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 10 Jun | 30.7 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Jun | 30.0 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 12 Jun | 31.3 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 13 Jun | 32.3 °C | 27 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 14 Jun | 31.9 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Jun | 31.4 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 16 Jun | 30.8 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Jun after | 30.6 °C | 23 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 18 Jun after | 31.7 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Jun after | 32.6 °C | 23 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Jun after | 33.1 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Jun after | 33.7 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 22 Jun after | 33.7 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Jun after | 32.1 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jun after | 31.7 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Jun after | 31.3 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Jun after | 30.7 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 27 Jun after | 31.1 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 28 Jun after | 32.2 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Jun after | 32.6 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 30 Jun after | 32.5 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Jul after | 33.1 °C | 20 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Jul after | 32.6 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Jul after | 31.5 °C | 19 % | 32 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.
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 · CopernicusOn 12 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 116 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 428Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Luiza fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 June 2024 and 16 June 2024: 9 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 10,040 hectares (100.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Luiza (10,115 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % 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.
Report an error
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.