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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Bukama fire, June 2019 Bukama

Out · last detection 7 Jul 2019, 12:30 UTC

The fire started on 30 June 2019 in Bukama, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 56th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 45 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2019, of 115.

Burnt area
7,459ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
30 Jun 2019 – 6 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
30 Jun
2019
Heat detections
198
in a single hotspot: 104 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jun6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1234567

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
27km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,342 ha in 2016, 2,762 ha in 2017, 4,891 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,637 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bukama where it started
    7,497 ha reached on 23 Jun
    0.4 %

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 Jun 31.3 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Jul 32.2 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Jul 31.4 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Jul 32.0 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Jul 31.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jul 31.2 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Jul 31.5 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Jul after 31.3 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Jul after 31.4 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Jul after 31.3 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Jul after 31.0 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Jul after 32.0 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Jul after 31.7 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Jul after 29.1 °C 41 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jul after 31.9 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jul after 31.3 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Jul after 30.5 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jun 2019
After · 13 Jul 2019

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 · 198Every 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 Bukama fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 June 2019 and 6 July 2019: 7 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 7,459 hectares (74.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bukama (7,497 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

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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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.