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Feshi fire, 13 June 2020 Feshi

Out · last detection 23 Jun 2020, 12:30 UTC

The fire started on 13 June 2020 in Feshi, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,355 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 82th largest in Kwango since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 76 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
7,355ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
13 Jun 2020 – 22 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
13 Jun
2020
Heat detections
245
in a single hotspot: 348 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
9.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Jun 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jun22 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
31km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 39 ha in 2016, 130 ha in 2017, 1,327 ha in 2018, 3,130 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,741 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Feshi where it started
    7,400 ha reached on 8 Jun
    0.4 %

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)
13 Jun 27.9 °C 49 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
14 Jun 30.6 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
15 Jun 30.8 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Jun 29.9 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Jun 31.2 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Jun 29.5 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jun 29.3 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Jun 31.0 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jun 32.2 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Jun 31.6 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Jun after 31.5 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jun after 32.0 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jun after 31.9 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Jun after 31.5 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jun after 29.6 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Jun after 31.5 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jun after 30.0 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Jun after 32.2 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Jul after 29.2 °C 41 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Jul after 30.9 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jun 2020
After · 29 Jun 2020

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 · 245Every 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 Feshi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 June 2020 and 22 June 2020: 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 7,355 hectares (73.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Feshi (7,400 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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.