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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Ango fire, 21 December 2018 Ango

Out · last detection 28 Dec 2018, 12:15 UTC

The fire started on 21 December 2018 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,010 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 46 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
7,010ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
21 Dec 2018 – 28 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
21 Dec
2018
Heat detections
261
in a single hotspot: 199 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Dec 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Dec28 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2122232425262728

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
29km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 54 ha in 2016, 1,816 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,675 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ango where it started
    7,058 ha reached on 21 Dec
    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)
21 Dec 33.9 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Dec 33.6 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Dec 33.8 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Dec 33.7 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Dec 34.5 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Dec 35.7 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Dec 35.3 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Dec 31.3 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
29 Dec after 32.5 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
30 Dec after 35.2 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Dec after 34.8 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Jan after 32.7 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Jan after 33.6 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Jan after 35.2 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Jan after 35.9 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Jan after 34.4 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Jan after 34.1 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
7 Jan after 32.1 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Dec 2018
After · 4 Jan 2019

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 · 261Every 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 21 December 2018 and 28 December 2018: 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 7,010 hectares (70.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ango (7,058 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.