Sandoa fire, 25 June 2024 Sandoa
The fire started on 25 June 2024 in Sandoa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,237 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 32th largest in Lualaba since 2016 (of 91 with a page). Number 61 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.
- Burnt area
- 7,237ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 25 Jun 2024 – 2 Jul 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 25 Jun
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 273
- in a single hotspot: 179 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.6GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,394 ha in 2016, 5,297 ha in 2017, 3,853 ha in 2018, 3,906 ha in 2019, 3,984 ha in 2020, 1,986 ha in 2021, 5,064 ha in 2022, 5,222 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,187 ha that had burned before.
- 5,112 ha Sandoa fire, July 2023 10,967 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,001 ha Sandoa fire, July 2022 12,163 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,957 ha Sandoa fire, July 2016 6,881 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,906 ha Sandoa fire, July 2019 8,094 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,472 ha Sandoa fire, July 2017 6,670 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Sandoa where it started7,204 ha reached on 24 Jun0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jun | 29.1 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Jun | 28.6 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 27 Jun | 29.0 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Jun | 29.9 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Jun | 30.4 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Jun | 30.1 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 1 Jul | 31.2 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Jul | 30.6 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Jul after | 29.8 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Jul after | 31.0 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Jul after | 30.9 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Jul after | 30.5 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Jul after | 30.3 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 Jul after | 30.4 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Jul after | 31.0 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Jul after | 30.7 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Jul after | 30.7 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 12 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
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 29 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 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 · 273Every 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 Sandoa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 June 2024 and 2 July 2024: 8 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 7,237 hectares (72.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Sandoa (7,204 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 40 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.