Ango fire, 16 January 2024 Ango
The fire started on 16 January 2024 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,554 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 27th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 73 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.
- Burnt area
- 6,554ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 16 Jan 2024 – 20 Jan 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 16 Jan
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 195
- in a single hotspot: 167 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.9GW
- 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 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 617 ha in 2016, 2,581 ha in 2017, 2,500 ha in 2018, 1,529 ha in 2019, 1,022 ha in 2020, 2,374 ha in 2021, 1,934 ha in 2022, 1,341 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,052 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Ango where it started6,598 ha reached on 13 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jan | 34.9 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 17 Jan | 34.6 °C | 13 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Jan | 33.4 °C | 14 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Jan | 34.3 °C | 14 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Jan | 34.9 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 21 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 10 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 22 Jan after | 34.8 °C | 12 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Jan after | 33.9 °C | 21 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 24 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 19 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 28 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Jan after | 34.8 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 27 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Jan after | 34.5 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Jan after | 36.2 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
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 · 195Every 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 · 14 km away
- 30,940 haAngo7 January 2020 · 17 days · 21 km away
- 19,129 haAngo19 December 2018 · 9 days · 22 km away
- 12,359 haAngo3 January 2017 · 7 days · 22 km away
- 11,413 haAngo1 February 2026 · 5 days · 27 km away
- 28,374 haAngoFebruary 2024 · 14 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ango fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 January 2024 and 20 January 2024: 5 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 6,554 hectares (65.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ango (6,598 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.