How long did the Basoko fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 February 2024 and 6 March 2024: 8 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 15,371 hectares (153.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Basoko (15,477 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2024-02-28 → 2024-03-06

Basoko fire, 28 February 2024 Basoko

Out · last detection 6 Mar 2024, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 28 February 2024 in Basoko, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,371 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Tshopo since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 19 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2024, of 133.

Burnt area: 15,371ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 28 Feb 2024 – 6 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 28 Feb; 2024
Heat detections: 778; in a single hotspot: 166 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 10.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 6 Mar 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Feb6 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

28291456

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

31km/h · peak gust

25%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,578 ha in 2017, 944 ha in 2018, 232 ha in 2019, 3,941 ha in 2020, 3,750 ha in 2021, 3,440 ha in 2022, 779 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,636 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Basoko where it started

15,477 ha reached on 28 Feb

0.7 %

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)
28 Feb	34.9 °C	40 %	26 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
29 Feb	37.1 °C	35 %	29 km/h	1.0 mm	High 23
1 Mar	36.0 °C	38 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
2 Mar	36.4 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
3 Mar	36.9 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
4 Mar	39.1 °C	25 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
5 Mar	38.7 °C	28 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
6 Mar	37.4 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
7 Mar after	36.7 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	High 37
8 Mar after	34.0 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
9 Mar after	36.9 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
10 Mar after	38.9 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 33
11 Mar after	32.3 °C	45 %	28 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
12 Mar after	37.8 °C	34 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
13 Mar after	39.8 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
14 Mar after	37.6 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.5 mm	High 35
15 Mar after	34.2 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Mar after	37.3 °C	33 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Feb 2024

After · 13 Mar 2024

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 3 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 125 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 70: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak125 µg/m³

Days over the guideline13 days

PM10177 µg/m³

Optical depth1.75

WHO 15

26272829123456789

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 778Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Basoko fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 February 2024 and 6 March 2024: 8 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 15,371 hectares (153.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Basoko (15,477 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned