Ango fire, February 2022 Ango
The fire started on 5 February 2022 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,007 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 17th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 33 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2022, of 106.
- Burnt area
- 8,007ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 5 Feb 2022 – 10 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 5 Feb
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 281
- in a single hotspot: 132 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.8GW
- 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 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,285 ha in 2016, 1,672 ha in 2017, 2,333 ha in 2018, 3,677 ha in 2019, 2,324 ha in 2020, 3,628 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,077 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Ango where it started8,062 ha reached on 29 Jan0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Feb | 33.0 °C | 18 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Feb | 34.1 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Feb | 35.0 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Feb | 35.9 °C | 8 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 9 Feb | 36.6 °C | 12 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Feb | 37.2 °C | 12 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Feb after | 36.5 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 12 Feb after | 36.9 °C | 11 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Feb after | 37.6 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 14 Feb after | 36.1 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Feb after | 36.1 °C | 18 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Feb after | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 17 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Feb after | 36.1 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Feb after | 36.0 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Feb after | 34.7 °C | 9 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
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 · 281Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,543 haAngo30 December 2018 · 8 days · 21 km away
- 28,374 haAngoFebruary 2024 · 14 days · 22 km away
- 12,359 haAngo3 January 2017 · 7 days · 22 km away
- 11,413 haAngo1 February 2026 · 5 days · 22 km away
- 19,129 haAngo19 December 2018 · 9 days · 23 km away
- 30,940 haAngo7 January 2020 · 17 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ango fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 February 2022 and 10 February 2022: 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 8,007 hectares (80.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ango (8,062 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.