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Idiofa fire, 29 July 2018 Idiofa

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2018, 12:37 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2018 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,160 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 129th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 44 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
7,160ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
29 Jul 2018 – 10 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
29 Jul
2018
Heat detections
407
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
21
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2930312345678910

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
39km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,049 ha in 2016, 5,251 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,081 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Idiofa where it started
    7,210 ha reached on 23 Jul
    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)
29 Jul 32.4 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.9 mm High 21
30 Jul 34.4 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Jul 34.0 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Aug 31.4 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Aug 33.2 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Aug 34.6 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
4 Aug 34.3 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
5 Aug 36.5 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Aug 34.2 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug 33.4 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug 34.4 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.8 mm High 28
9 Aug 33.8 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Aug 34.2 °C 42 % 31 km/h 1.1 mm High 22
11 Aug after 34.4 °C 42 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Aug after 33.8 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Aug after 33.4 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
14 Aug after 34.2 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.7 mm High 25
15 Aug after 34.1 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Aug after 35.1 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug after 33.1 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
18 Aug after 31.9 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Aug after 32.8 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug after 33.7 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jul 2018
After · 17 Aug 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 · 407Every 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 Idiofa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 July 2018 and 10 August 2018: 13 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 7,160 hectares (71.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Idiofa (7,210 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.