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Bukama fire, August 2022 Bukama, Kamina

Out · last measured on 9 Aug 2022

The fire started on 2 August 2022 in Bukama, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,798 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 37th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 23 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2022, of 106.

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
8,798ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
2 Aug 2022 – 9 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
2 Aug
2022
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

33°high
37km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,123 ha in 2016, 3,505 ha in 2017, 2,893 ha in 2018, 3,046 ha in 2019, 3,133 ha in 2020, 1,523 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,752 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bukama where it started
    8,833 ha
    0.5 %
  2. Kamina
    11 ha
    0.0 %

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 Aug 31.9 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Aug 32.2 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug 32.8 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Aug 31.8 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Aug 32.4 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug 32.7 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Aug 32.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 33.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Aug after 33.9 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug after 32.6 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug after 32.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug after 33.4 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug after 34.0 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug after 33.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Aug after 32.5 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug after 32.0 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Aug after 32.8 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug after 34.5 °C 17 % 17 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.

Before · 26 Jul 2022
After · 16 Aug 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bukama fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 August 2022 and 9 August 2022: 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 8,798 hectares (88.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bukama (8,833 ha, 0.5 %); Kamina (11 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.

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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.