Ango fire, 13 January 2025 Ango
The fire started on 13 January 2025 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,097 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 35th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 86 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 6,097ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 13 Jan 2025 – 15 Jan 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 13 Jan
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 174
- in a single hotspot: 93 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.1GW
- 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 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 713 ha in 2016, 2,911 ha in 2017, 2,252 ha in 2018, 432 ha in 2019, 3,527 ha in 2020, 1,559 ha in 2021, 200 ha in 2022, 2,046 ha in 2023, 779 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,736 ha that had burned before.
- 1,857 ha Ango fire, December 2018 14,543 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 333 ha Ango fire, January 2024 6,554 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 170 ha Ango fire, January 2020 30,940 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 33 ha Ango fire, January 2021 5,586 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Ango where it started6,137 ha reached on 10 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Jan | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Jan | 36.7 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Jan | 37.5 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 16 Jan after | 37.0 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 17 Jan after | 37.4 °C | 19 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 18 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 20 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Jan after | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Jan after | 34.3 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Jan after | 34.7 °C | 27 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 22 Jan after | 36.2 °C | 25 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Jan after | 35.8 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 17 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 16 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 141 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 69: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 174Every 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 13 January 2025 and 15 January 2025: 3 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 6,097 hectares (61.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ango (6,137 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.