Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Kabongo fire, 2 July 2019 Kabongo

Out · last detection 8 Jul 2019, 12:11 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2019 in Kabongo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,437 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 14 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2019, of 115.

Burnt area
11,437ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
2 Jul 2019 – 7 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
2 Jul
2019
Heat detections
301
in a single hotspot: 100 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul7 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2345678

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
34km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,982 ha in 2016, 3,792 ha in 2017, 3,716 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,832 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kabongo where it started
    11,526 ha reached on 2 Jul
    0.6 %

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)
2 Jul 32.5 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Jul 32.8 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Jul 32.1 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Jul 32.2 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jul 32.3 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Jul 32.2 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Jul after 32.4 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jul after 33.1 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jul after 31.4 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Jul after 32.6 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Jul after 32.7 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Jul after 29.6 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jul after 32.7 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jul after 32.2 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul after 31.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Jul after 31.4 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jul after 31.0 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jul after 31.6 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jul after 32.3 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2019
After · 14 Jul 2019

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 · 301Every 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 2 July 2019 and 7 July 2019: 6 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 11,437 hectares (114.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kabongo (11,526 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.