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Kabongo fire, 24 July 2018 Kabongo, Lubao

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2018, 11:21 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2018 in Kabongo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,107 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 17 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
11,107ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
24 Jul 2018 – 28 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
2
territories
Started on
24 Jul
2018
Heat detections
327
in a single hotspot: 298 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
50km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 2 Aug.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 638 ha in 2016, 1,493 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,847 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kabongo where it started
    9,446 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.5 %
  2. Lubao
    1,721 ha reached on 24 Jul
    0.1 %

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)
18 Jul 28.9 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Jul 29.3 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jul 30.6 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jul 31.3 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Jul 30.9 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Jul 30.9 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Jul 30.1 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jul 30.5 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jul 30.7 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jul 29.6 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jul 28.3 °C 35 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Jul after 30.5 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul after 28.5 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Jul after 28.9 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Aug after 27.6 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Aug after 29.0 °C 46 % 26 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2018
After · 4 Aug 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 · 327Every 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 Kabongo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 July 2018 and 28 July 2018: 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 11,107 hectares (111.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kabongo (9,446 ha, 0.5 %); Lubao (1,721 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 50 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.