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Ango fire, 22 January 2020 Ango

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2020, 11:30 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2020 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,771 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 67 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
7,771ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
22 Jan 2020 – 29 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
22 Jan
2020
Heat detections
276
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan29 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829

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
44km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,676 ha in 2016, 1,841 ha in 2017, 761 ha in 2018, 3,803 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,622 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ango where it started
    7,827 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)
22 Jan 34.4 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Jan 34.0 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Jan 33.5 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Jan 34.0 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Jan 34.0 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Jan 35.8 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Jan 37.2 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Jan 36.3 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Jan after 36.6 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Jan after 34.3 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Feb after 33.2 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Feb after 35.6 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Feb after 37.2 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Feb after 36.6 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Feb after 33.4 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
6 Feb after 34.3 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Feb after 37.0 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Feb after 38.8 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jan 2020
After · 5 Feb 2020

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 · 276Every 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 22 January 2020 and 29 January 2020: 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 7,771 hectares (77.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ango (7,827 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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.