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Kabongo fire, 6 July 2020 Kabongo

Out · last detection 7 Jul 2020, 11:27 UTC

The fire started on 6 July 2020 in Kabongo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,423 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 134th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 143 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
5,423ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
6 Jul 2020 – 6 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
6 Jul
2020
Heat detections
148
in a single hotspot: 170 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jul6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

67

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
34km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 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: 1,872 ha in 2016, 1,266 ha in 2017, 2,578 ha in 2018, 1,466 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,154 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kabongo where it started
    5,452 ha reached on 6 Jul
    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)
6 Jul 30.7 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Jul after 31.0 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Jul after 31.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Jul after 31.9 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Jul after 31.3 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jul after 31.8 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Jul after 32.0 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Jul after 31.8 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Jul after 31.3 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jul after 30.3 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Jul after 30.7 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jun 2020
After · 13 Jul 2020

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 · 148Every 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 6 July 2020 and 6 July 2020: 1 day 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 5,423 hectares (54.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kabongo (5,452 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 34 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 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.