Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Dimbelenge fire, 15 July 2020 Dimbelenge

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2020, 12:49 UTC

The fire started on 15 July 2020 in Dimbelenge, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,729 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Central Kasai since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 34 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
11,729ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
15 Jul 2020 – 23 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
15 Jul
2020
Heat detections
525
in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jul23 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
36km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 5 Aug.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,054 ha in 2016, 858 ha in 2018, 1,080 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,394 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dimbelenge where it started
    11,800 ha reached on 14 Jul
    1.0 %

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)
14 Jul 30.1 °C 54 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
15 Jul 31.0 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
16 Jul 30.4 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
17 Jul 31.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jul 30.9 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Jul 31.7 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Jul 33.1 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul 33.8 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jul 33.9 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jul 32.1 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jul after 32.0 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Jul after 32.8 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Jul after 33.6 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jul after 32.8 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jul after 32.1 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jul after 33.5 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jul after 34.5 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Jul after 35.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Aug after 33.4 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug after 32.3 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Aug after 33.5 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Aug after 32.6 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Aug after 30.4 °C 48 % 23 km/h 3.2 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jul 2020
After · 30 Jul 2020

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 · 525Every 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 Dimbelenge fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 July 2020 and 23 July 2020: 9 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 11,729 hectares (117.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dimbelenge (11,800 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.