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Ango fire, 29 December 2018 Ango

Out · last detection 4 Jan 2019, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 29 December 2018 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,337 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 22 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
10,337ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
29 Dec 2018 – 3 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
29 Dec
2018
Heat detections
336
in a single hotspot: 120 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Dec3 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
35km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 14 Jan.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,493 ha in 2016, 4,027 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,409 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ango where it started
    10,404 ha reached on 29 Dec
    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)
29 Dec 32.9 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
30 Dec 35.8 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Dec 35.9 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Jan 33.6 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Jan 34.1 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Jan 34.8 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Jan after 36.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jan after 35.1 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Jan after 33.9 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
7 Jan after 33.0 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm High 23
8 Jan after 34.6 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Jan after 34.3 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jan after 34.8 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Jan after 36.0 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jan after 34.7 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Jan after 34.9 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Jan after 34.6 °C 35 % 36 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Dec 2018
After · 10 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 · 336Every 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 29 December 2018 and 3 January 2019: 6 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 10,337 hectares (103.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ango (10,404 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.