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Kabambare fire, August 2016 Kabambare

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2016, 11:03 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2016 in Kabambare, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,084 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Maniema since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 148 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
5,084ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
27 Aug 2016 – 9 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
27 Aug
2016
Heat detections
199
in a single hotspot: 203 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

27282930311345678910

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
48km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 16 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kabambare where it started
    5,119 ha reached on 27 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
27 Aug 33.7 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug 34.3 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Aug 34.5 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Aug 33.8 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Aug 35.0 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept 34.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Sept 35.4 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Sept 34.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept 35.3 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Sept 37.1 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Sept 34.8 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Sept 33.3 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Sept 33.4 °C 41 % 23 km/h 2.3 mm Low 11
9 Sept 32.1 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 Sept after 34.6 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Sept after 34.1 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Sept after 34.7 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Sept after 33.6 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Sept after 34.2 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Sept after 33.7 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
16 Sept after 30.5 °C 50 % 26 km/h 2.8 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2016
After · 16 Sept 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 · 199Every 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 Kabambare fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 August 2016 and 9 September 2016: 14 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 5,084 hectares (50.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kabambare (5,119 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
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.