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Dungu fire, 7 January 2018 Dungu

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2018, 23:12 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2018 in Dungu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,793 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 82th largest in Upper Uele since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 81 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
5,793ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
7 Jan 2018 – 9 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
7 Jan
2018
Heat detections
174
in a single hotspot: 235 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan9 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

78910

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
35km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 647 ha in 2016, 912 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,024 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dungu where it started
    5,835 ha reached on 7 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)
7 Jan 33.6 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jan 32.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Jan 32.9 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jan after 34.0 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jan after 34.7 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jan after 34.8 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jan after 36.5 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Jan after 34.5 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Jan after 33.3 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jan after 33.7 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jan after 33.9 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Jan after 34.5 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Jan after 34.8 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Dec 2017
After · 16 Jan 2018

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 · 174Every 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 7 January 2018 and 9 January 2018: 3 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 5,793 hectares (57.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dungu (5,835 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.