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Idiofa fire, 2 August 2020 Idiofa

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2020, 12:18 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2020 in Idiofa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,291 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Kwilu since 2016 (of 236 with a page). Number 19 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
18,291ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
2 Aug 2020 – 16 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
2 Aug
2020
Heat detections
864
in a single hotspot: 116 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
10.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2345678910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
33km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.5 mm on 22 Aug.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,019 ha in 2016, 4,798 ha in 2017, 3,534 ha in 2018, 8,716 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,829 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Idiofa where it started
    18,403 ha reached on 26 Jul
    1.0 %

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)
26 Jul 31.4 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
27 Jul 30.5 °C 46 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
28 Jul 32.3 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Jul 33.1 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jul 33.4 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jul 33.9 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Aug 32.7 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Aug 32.5 °C 42 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Aug 32.5 °C 47 % 23 km/h 0.6 mm High 22
4 Aug 31.4 °C 48 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
5 Aug 31.8 °C 44 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
6 Aug 32.2 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Aug 32.4 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Aug 32.0 °C 45 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Aug 33.4 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Aug 32.3 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Aug 32.5 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Aug 32.6 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
13 Aug 32.9 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Aug 30.9 °C 53 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm High 24
15 Aug 30.0 °C 59 % 30 km/h 5.8 mm Very low 4
16 Aug 33.7 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
17 Aug after 34.1 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Aug after 33.1 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Aug after 33.0 °C 48 % 32 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 14
20 Aug after 32.9 °C 48 % 24 km/h 7.6 mm Very low 4
21 Aug after 34.1 °C 42 % 23 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 5
22 Aug after 30.5 °C 57 % 30 km/h 7.5 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2020
After · 23 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 · 864Every 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 2 August 2020 and 16 August 2020: 15 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 18,291 hectares (182.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Idiofa (18,403 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.