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Dungu fire, February 2016 Dungu

Out · last detection 16 Feb 2016, 23:26 UTC

The fire started on 3 February 2016 in Dungu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,396 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 28th largest in Upper Uele since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 18 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
16,396ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
3 Feb 2016 – 16 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
3 Feb
2016
Heat detections
622
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Feb16 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

345678910111213141516

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
42km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 21 Feb.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Dungu where it started
    16,506 ha reached on 3 Feb
    0.5 %

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)
3 Feb 36.3 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Feb 36.9 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Feb 38.2 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Feb 38.2 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Feb 37.6 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Feb 36.3 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Feb 36.1 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Feb 37.1 °C 7 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Feb 36.5 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Feb 36.3 °C 7 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Feb 36.9 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Feb 36.7 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Feb 37.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Feb 38.9 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Feb after 36.1 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Feb after 35.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Feb after 38.4 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Feb after 36.9 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Feb after 36.1 °C 33 % 30 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jan 2016
After · 23 Feb 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 · 622Every 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 Dungu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 February 2016 and 16 February 2016: 14 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 16,396 hectares (164.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dungu (16,506 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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.