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Dungu fire, 13 January 2018 Dungu

Out · last detection 27 Jan 2018, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 13 January 2018 in Dungu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,183 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Upper Uele since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 9 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
19,183ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
13 Jan 2018 – 26 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
13 Jan
2018
Heat detections
686
in a single hotspot: 132 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
8.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jan26 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
45km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,373 ha in 2016, 13,760 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,517 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dungu where it started
    19,305 ha reached on 12 Jan
    0.6 %

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)
11 Jan 35.6 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Jan 35.0 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Jan 36.6 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Jan 33.7 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Jan 32.6 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Jan 34.0 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jan 34.9 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Jan 35.0 °C 16 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Jan 35.4 °C 14 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Jan 35.1 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jan 36.3 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Jan 35.6 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jan 37.3 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jan 33.8 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Jan 33.3 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Jan 34.7 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jan after 35.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jan after 35.9 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Jan after 35.3 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Jan after 35.2 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
31 Jan after 35.6 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Feb after 36.4 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Feb after 37.0 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Feb after 36.8 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Feb after 36.2 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Feb after 35.3 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Feb after 38.8 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Feb after 38.3 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Feb after 39.5 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Feb after 36.5 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Feb after 34.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Feb after 34.0 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Feb after 36.0 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jan 2018
After · 2 Feb 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 · 686Every 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 13 January 2018 and 26 January 2018: 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 19,183 hectares (191.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dungu (19,305 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.