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Ango fire, 3 January 2017 Ango

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2017, 23:56 UTC

The fire started on 3 January 2017 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,605 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 22 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2017, of 138.

Burnt area
10,605ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
3 Jan 2017 – 10 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
3 Jan
2017
Heat detections
245
in a single hotspot: 120 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jan10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

345678910

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
39km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 580 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Ango where it started
    10,682 ha reached on 3 Jan
    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)
3 Jan 35.3 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Jan 36.9 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Jan 36.3 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jan 37.5 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jan 37.6 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Jan 37.6 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Jan 36.6 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jan 37.0 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jan after 37.1 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jan after 37.2 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Jan after 35.7 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Jan after 36.7 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Jan after 37.7 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jan after 39.0 °C 10 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jan after 39.1 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Jan after 38.4 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jan after 38.7 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Jan after 39.3 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Dec 2016
After · 17 Jan 2017

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 · 245Every 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 Ango fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 January 2017 and 10 January 2017: 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 10,605 hectares (106.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ango (10,682 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.