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Kabalo fire, 3 July 2016 Kabalo

Out · last detection 8 Jul 2016, 11:03 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2016 in Kabalo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,005 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 143th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 102 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
6,005ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
3 Jul 2016 – 7 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
3 Jul
2016
Heat detections
162
in a single hotspot: 81 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul7 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

345678

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
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Kabalo where it started
    6,045 ha reached on 26 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)
3 Jul 34.6 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Jul 33.7 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Jul 33.0 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Jul 33.5 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jul 34.0 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Jul after 33.8 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jul after 33.4 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Jul after 32.5 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Jul after 32.3 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Jul after 31.7 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Jul after 33.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jul after 33.2 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jul after 34.4 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jul after 35.2 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jul after 35.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jun 2016
After · 14 Jul 2016

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 · 162Every 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 Kabalo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 July 2016 and 7 July 2016: 5 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 6,005 hectares (60.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kabalo (6,045 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.