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Mweka fire, 18 July 2024 Mweka

Out · last detection 17 Aug 2024, 12:06 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2024 in Mweka, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,842 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Kasaï since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 13 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.

Burnt area
25,842ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
18 Jul 2024 – 17 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
18 Jul
2024
Heat detections
1,526
in a single hotspot: 138 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
10.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul17 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

18202122303112345678910111213151617

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
33km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 29 Aug.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,982 ha in 2016, 5,885 ha in 2017, 407 ha in 2018, 5,491 ha in 2019, 9,914 ha in 2020, 4,427 ha in 2021, 4,634 ha in 2022, 11,306 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,161 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mweka where it started
    26,034 ha reached on 17 Jul
    1.3 %

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)
17 Jul 35.9 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jul 33.7 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jul 34.0 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Jul 34.6 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul 31.8 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jul 34.0 °C 42 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Jul 34.1 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Jul 35.0 °C 28 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Jul 35.2 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Jul 36.0 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jul 34.3 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul 34.9 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul 33.6 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jul 33.9 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
31 Jul 34.9 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Aug 34.7 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Aug 31.5 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm High 28
3 Aug 34.7 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Aug 35.0 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Aug 33.8 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Aug 34.8 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Aug 36.1 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug 35.1 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Aug 34.9 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug 34.0 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Aug 34.6 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Aug 32.1 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Aug 33.3 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
14 Aug 29.1 °C 59 % 27 km/h 2.7 mm Low 7
15 Aug 32.0 °C 50 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
16 Aug 32.8 °C 46 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
17 Aug 32.2 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
18 Aug after 32.2 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Aug after 34.2 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Aug after 33.8 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug after 34.0 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Aug after 33.0 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Aug after 35.1 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug after 36.1 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Aug after 35.5 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Aug after 36.7 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Aug after 35.0 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Aug after 36.0 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm High 36
29 Aug after 34.3 °C 42 % 30 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2024
After · 24 Aug 2024

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 7 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 242 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 153: 10 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak242 µg/m³
Days over the guideline36 days
PM10346 µg/m³
Optical depth2.87
161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920
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 · 1,526Every 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 Mweka fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2024 and 17 August 2024: 31 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 25,842 hectares (258.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mweka (26,034 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class 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.