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Kabambare fire, July 2018 Kabambare

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2018, 10:56 UTC

The fire started on 5 July 2018 in Kabambare, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,446 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Maniema since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 62 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
6,446ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
5 Jul 2018 – 24 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
5 Jul
2018
Heat detections
448
in a single hotspot: 80 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jul24 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 29 Jul.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 613 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Kabambare where it started
    6,486 ha reached on 29 Jun
    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)
5 Jul 33.2 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Jul 33.3 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Jul 33.6 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Jul 33.7 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Jul 35.0 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Jul 35.2 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Jul 35.6 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jul 35.6 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Jul 34.6 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Jul 35.3 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jul 36.1 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul 34.0 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Jul 34.2 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Jul 34.9 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jul 33.8 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Jul 35.0 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Jul 35.7 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jul 35.6 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jul 35.6 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul 35.1 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jul after 35.1 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jul after 29.3 °C 44 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Jul after 30.2 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Jul after 32.1 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jul after 33.1 °C 40 % 22 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jun 2018
After · 31 Jul 2018

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 · 448Every 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 5 July 2018 and 24 July 2018: 20 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 6,446 hectares (64.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kabambare (6,486 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.