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Kamina fire, 10 July 2017 Kamina

Out · last detection 13 Jul 2017, 12:04 UTC

The fire started on 10 July 2017 in Kamina, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,233 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 149th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 114 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2017, of 138.

Burnt area
5,233ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
10 Jul 2017 – 12 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
10 Jul
2017
Heat detections
109
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jul12 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

10111213

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
38km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,737 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,502 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kamina where it started
    5,257 ha reached on 10 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)
10 Jul 32.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Jul 31.7 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Jul 32.3 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Jul after 32.0 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Jul after 32.0 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul after 33.1 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Jul after 33.1 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Jul after 33.8 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jul after 33.2 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jul after 33.9 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jul after 34.8 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jul after 33.1 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jul after 34.6 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jul 2017
After · 19 Jul 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 · 109Every 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 Kamina fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 July 2017 and 12 July 2017: 3 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 5,233 hectares (52.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kamina (5,257 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.