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Kahemba fire, 20 June 2016 Kahemba

Out · last detection 25 Jun 2016, 11:47 UTC

The fire started on 20 June 2016 in Kahemba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,747 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 143th largest in Kwango since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 111 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
5,747ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
20 Jun 2016 – 24 Jun 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
20 Jun
2016
Heat detections
157
in a single hotspot: 230 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jun 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jun24 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

202122232425

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
46km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kahemba where it started
    5,790 ha reached on 20 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)
20 Jun 30.5 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Jun 28.4 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Jun 29.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jun 30.9 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jun 28.4 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jun after 29.0 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jun after 30.1 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jun after 30.4 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Jun after 30.6 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Jun after 31.6 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Jun after 29.3 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Jul after 31.2 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Jul after 31.9 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Jul after 32.4 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Jul after 31.2 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jun 2016
After · 1 Jul 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 · 157Every 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 Kahemba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 June 2016 and 24 June 2016: 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 5,747 hectares (57.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kahemba (5,790 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 46 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.