Ango fire, 21 January 2020 Ango
The fire started on 21 January 2020 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 29,468 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 8 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.
- Burnt area
- 29,468ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 21 Jan 2020 – 31 Jan 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 21 Jan
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 975
- in a single hotspot: 196 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 12.4GW
- 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 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 5 Feb.
This area had burned before
32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,549 ha in 2016, 1,524 ha in 2017, 813 ha in 2018, 3,584 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,348 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Ango where it started29,651 ha reached on 18 Jan0.9 %
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 Jan | 35.4 °C | 16 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 22 Jan | 35.3 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Jan | 35.0 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jan | 34.2 °C | 11 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Jan | 34.7 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Jan | 34.6 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 Jan | 36.6 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Jan | 36.9 °C | 14 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 29 Jan | 37.0 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Jan | 37.5 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 31 Jan | 32.8 °C | 28 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Feb after | 34.6 °C | 28 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Feb after | 36.5 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Feb after | 37.5 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 4 Feb after | 36.2 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Feb after | 32.7 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 1.9 mm | Moderate 16 |
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.
Detections table · 975Every 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 Ango fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 January 2020 and 31 January 2020: 11 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 29,468 hectares (294.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ango (29,651 ha, 0.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.