Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Ango fire, February 2024 Ango

Out · last detection 15 Feb 2024, 11:18 UTC

The fire started on 2 February 2024 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,374 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 11 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.

Burnt area
28,374ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
2 Feb 2024 – 15 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
2 Feb
2024
Heat detections
1,047
in a single hotspot: 237 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
9.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Feb 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Feb15 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

23456789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
40km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,670 ha in 2016, 8,739 ha in 2017, 14,643 ha in 2018, 958 ha in 2019, 12,573 ha in 2020, 7,742 ha in 2021, 5,339 ha in 2022, 3,520 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 26,479 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ango where it started
    28,572 ha reached on 31 Jan
    0.8 %

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)
2 Feb 33.7 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
3 Feb 36.2 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Feb 36.4 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Feb 33.8 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 44
6 Feb 36.9 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Feb 36.5 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Feb 37.5 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Feb 37.8 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Feb 37.4 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Feb 36.4 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Feb 37.4 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Feb 39.0 °C 15 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Feb 36.7 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Feb 36.5 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Feb after 36.5 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
17 Feb after 34.4 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Feb after 36.7 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Feb after 36.5 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Feb after 37.1 °C 9 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Feb after 37.9 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Feb after 38.3 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
23 Feb after 37.9 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Feb after 36.7 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Feb after 37.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jan 2024
After · 22 Feb 2024

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 · 1,047Every 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 2 February 2024 and 15 February 2024: 14 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 28,374 hectares (283.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ango (28,572 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.