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Bulungu fire, 21 July 2016 Bulungu

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2016, 12:25 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2016 in Bulungu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,735 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 9 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
21,735ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
21 Jul 2016 – 10 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
21 Jul
2016
Heat detections
1,145
in a single hotspot: 499 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
20.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526272829303112345678910

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
32km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.5 mm on 15 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Bulungu where it started
    21,873 ha reached on 14 Jul
    1.6 %

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)
14 Jul 33.6 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jul 33.6 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul 32.5 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jul 32.2 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
18 Jul 31.8 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Jul 33.0 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
20 Jul 32.4 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
21 Jul 31.9 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Jul 31.7 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Jul 33.4 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jul 31.4 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Jul 31.4 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Jul 32.0 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jul 32.9 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jul 33.1 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jul 34.6 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Jul 32.3 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul 31.3 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Aug 35.6 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug 34.8 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug 34.8 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug 34.5 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug 34.5 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Aug 35.0 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Aug 34.8 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 30.7 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Aug 33.4 °C 39 % 27 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 21
10 Aug 32.1 °C 45 % 24 km/h 3.1 mm Low 9
11 Aug after 31.3 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 19
12 Aug after 32.8 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
13 Aug after 34.3 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
14 Aug after 31.9 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm High 25
15 Aug after 30.9 °C 49 % 24 km/h 5.5 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2016
After · 17 Aug 2016

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 · 1,145Every 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 Bulungu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 July 2016 and 10 August 2016: 21 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 21,735 hectares (217.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bulungu (21,873 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.