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Dungu fire, 20 January 2018 Dungu

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2018, 11:17 UTC

The fire started on 20 January 2018 in Dungu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,582 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Upper Uele since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 19 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
10,582ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
20 Jan 2018 – 29 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
20 Jan
2018
Heat detections
456
in a single hotspot: 163 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jan29 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

20212223242526272829

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
42km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,473 ha in 2016, 3,786 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,769 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dungu where it started
    10,660 ha reached on 20 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
20 Jan 34.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Jan 36.0 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jan 35.4 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jan 36.3 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Jan 34.2 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jan 33.0 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jan 34.5 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jan 33.9 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Jan 34.7 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Jan 33.8 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Jan after 33.6 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Jan after 34.0 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Feb after 34.7 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Feb after 35.3 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Feb after 35.6 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Feb after 35.4 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Feb after 34.4 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Feb after 37.3 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Feb after 38.1 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Feb after 38.5 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jan 2018
After · 5 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 · 456Every 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 20 January 2018 and 29 January 2018: 10 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 10,582 hectares (105.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dungu (10,660 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.