Ango fire, 30 January 2025 Ango
The fire started on 30 January 2025 in Ango, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,014 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 16th largest in Lower Uele since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 44 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2025, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 8,014ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 30 Jan 2025 – 4 Feb 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 30 Jan
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 372
- in a single hotspot: 122 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.7GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 26 ha in 2016, 3,284 ha in 2017, 6,811 ha in 2018, 2,288 ha in 2020, 2,942 ha in 2021, 3,717 ha in 2022, 1,739 ha in 2023, 4,541 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,837 ha that had burned before.
- 4,541 ha Ango fire, February 2024 28,374 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,691 ha Ango fire, December 2018 5,604 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,586 ha Ango fire, January 2017 6,518 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 26 ha Ango fire, January 2016 19,692 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Ango where it started8,070 ha reached on 28 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Jan | 34.9 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 31 Jan | 35.4 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 Feb | 36.3 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 2 Feb | 37.2 °C | 12 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 3 Feb | 37.0 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 4 Feb | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Feb after | 36.4 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Feb after | 36.7 °C | 16 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Feb after | 38.8 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 8 Feb after | 34.1 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Feb after | 35.6 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Feb after | 38.1 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Feb after | 38.2 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 12 Feb after | 37.0 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 13 Feb after | 36.6 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 14 Feb after | 34.6 °C | 29 % | 35 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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 7 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 117 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 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 · 372Every 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 30 January 2025 and 4 February 2025: 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 8,014 hectares (80.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ango (8,070 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 38 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.
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.