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Kahemba fire, 8 August 2017 Kahemba

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2017, 12:42 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2017 in Kahemba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,276 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 115th largest in Kwango since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 79 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2017, of 138.

Burnt area
6,276ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
8 Aug 2017 – 12 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
8 Aug
2017
Heat detections
175
in a single hotspot: 135 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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
37km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 20 Aug.

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,368 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Kahemba where it started
    6,323 ha reached on 5 Aug
    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)
8 Aug 30.3 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Aug 30.8 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug 30.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Aug 30.5 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 31.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Aug after 31.5 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug after 31.9 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug after 32.3 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Aug after 33.0 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug after 31.4 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Aug after 29.8 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Aug after 29.2 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug after 26.0 °C 53 % 32 km/h 3.5 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2017
After · 19 Aug 2017

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 · 175Every 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 8 August 2017 and 12 August 2017: 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 6,276 hectares (62.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kahemba (6,323 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 37 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.

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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.