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Dungu fire, 29 January 2017 Dungu

Out · last detection 5 Feb 2017, 11:30 UTC

The fire started on 29 January 2017 in Dungu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,361 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 70th largest in Upper Uele since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 77 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2017, of 138.

Burnt area
6,361ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Jan 2017 – 4 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
29 Jan
2017
Heat detections
159
in a single hotspot: 169 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Average daily power
257MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

5 Feb 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jan4 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

29 Jan 2017 · 33 MW · 5 30 Jan 2017 · 3 MW · 1 31 Jan 2017 · 407 MW · 15 1 Feb 2017 · 931 MW · 52 2 Feb 2017 · 386 MW · 38 3 Feb 2017 · 158 MW · 38 4 Feb 2017 · 15 MW · 5 5 Feb 2017 · 125 MW · 5
29 Jan 31 Jan 1 Feb 2 Feb 4 Feb

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
36km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 13 Feb.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 880 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Dungu where it started
    6,401 ha reached on 29 Jan
    0.2 %

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)
29 Jan 33.5 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Jan 34.3 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jan 34.2 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Feb 36.1 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Feb 36.0 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Feb 33.9 °C 16 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Feb 34.9 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Feb after 36.6 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Feb after 36.7 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Feb after 36.7 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Feb after 37.4 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Feb after 34.9 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 38
10 Feb after 34.7 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Feb after 36.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Feb after 35.9 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
13 Feb after 34.7 °C 35 % 34 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jan 2017
After · 11 Feb 2017

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 · 159Every 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dungu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 January 2017 and 4 February 2017: 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 6,361 hectares (63.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dungu (6,401 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Democratic Republic of the Congo (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.