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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Ango fire, 16 January 2017 Ango

Out · last detection 19 Jan 2017, 11:49 UTC

The fire started on 16 January 2017 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,942 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 24th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 53 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2017, of 138.

Burnt area
6,942ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
16 Jan 2017 – 19 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
16 Jan
2017
Heat detections
197
in a single hotspot: 462 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jan19 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

16171819

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
30km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Ango where it started
    6,986 ha reached on 16 Jan
    0.2 %

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)
16 Jan 38.4 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Jan 38.5 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Jan 37.8 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jan 36.9 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jan after 38.7 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jan after 36.4 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jan after 38.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jan after 38.6 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jan after 34.4 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.6 mm High 36
25 Jan after 31.1 °C 52 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm High 26
26 Jan after 32.6 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jan after 35.5 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
28 Jan after 35.0 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jan after 34.2 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jan 2017
After · 26 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 · 197Every 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 16 January 2017 and 19 January 2017: 4 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 6,942 hectares (69.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ango (6,986 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.