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Idiofa fire, 19 July 2020 Idiofa

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2020, 11:34 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2020 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,602 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 23 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
15,602ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
19 Jul 2020 – 12 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
19 Jul
2020
Heat detections
1,149
in a single hotspot: 316 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
14.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1920212223242526272829303112345678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
36km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.1 mm on 20 Aug.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,966 ha in 2016, 7,362 ha in 2017, 7,262 ha in 2018, 2,571 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,756 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Idiofa where it started
    15,712 ha reached on 15 Jul
    0.8 %

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)
15 Jul 31.3 °C 50 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm High 25
16 Jul 31.9 °C 44 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Jul 32.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul 31.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jul 31.6 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Jul 32.5 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul 34.0 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jul 34.1 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Jul 33.0 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jul 32.9 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jul 33.3 °C 31 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jul 33.0 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
27 Jul 30.8 °C 40 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jul 32.9 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jul 33.0 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul 33.8 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul 34.9 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Aug 34.3 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Aug 33.1 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Aug 33.0 °C 42 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
4 Aug 31.4 °C 46 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
5 Aug 31.3 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Aug 32.7 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Aug 32.5 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
8 Aug 31.8 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Aug 33.3 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Aug 32.6 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Aug 33.1 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Aug 33.2 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Aug after 32.7 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug after 31.2 °C 50 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
15 Aug after 32.8 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
16 Aug after 34.4 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Aug after 34.3 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Aug after 34.4 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Aug after 33.4 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.8 mm High 24
20 Aug after 33.2 °C 47 % 21 km/h 11.1 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2020
After · 19 Aug 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 · 1,149Every 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 19 July 2020 and 12 August 2020: 25 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 15,602 hectares (156.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Idiofa (15,712 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.