Kabalo fire, 29 May 2017 Kabalo, Kongolo
The fire started on 29 May 2017 in Kabalo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,361 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 186th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 107 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2017, of 138.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 5,361ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 29 May 2017 – 16 Jun 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- territories
- Started on
- 29 May
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 185
- in a single hotspot: 85 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 119MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 520 ha in 2016.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Kabalo where it started5,250 ha reached on 29 May0.4 %
-
143 ha reached on 31 May0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Jun | 35.7 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Jun | 36.0 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Jun | 34.3 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Jun | 35.3 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Jun | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Jun | 35.3 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 8 Jun | 34.8 °C | 27 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 9 Jun | 34.8 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Jun | 35.2 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Jun | 35.2 °C | 23 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Jun | 35.0 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Jun | 34.6 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Jun | 33.3 °C | 32 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Jun | 33.9 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 16 Jun | 35.3 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Jun after | 35.3 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 18 Jun after | 32.8 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Jun after | 35.2 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 185Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kabalo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 May 2017 to 16 June 2017 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 June 2017 to 9 June 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,361 hectares (53.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kabalo (5,250 ha, 0.4 %); Kongolo (143 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo (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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 9 June 2017 → 16 June 2017.
- Start date: 2 June 2017 → 29 May 2017.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 June 2017 to 9 June 2017. 185 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.