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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Kamina fire, August 2017 Kamina

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2017, 12:30 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2017 in Kamina, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,892 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 19 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2017, of 138.

Burnt area
10,892ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
28 Aug 2017 – 3 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
28 Aug
2017
Heat detections
317
in a single hotspot: 514 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
22.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug3 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

28293031123

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
45km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.5 mm on 16 Sept.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,595 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Kamina where it started
    10,978 ha reached on 26 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)
26 Aug 34.2 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Aug 32.7 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Aug 31.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Aug 31.2 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Aug 32.9 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Aug 33.5 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Sept 33.8 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Sept 33.4 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Sept 33.2 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Sept after 30.7 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Sept after 31.3 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Sept after 32.5 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Sept after 33.4 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Sept after 34.2 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Sept after 32.8 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Sept after 31.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Sept after 31.7 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
12 Sept after 32.1 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Sept after 33.4 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept after 31.4 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept after 32.6 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Sept after 29.0 °C 45 % 28 km/h 9.5 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2017
After · 10 Sept 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 · 317Every 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 28 August 2017 and 3 September 2017: 7 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 10,892 hectares (108.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kamina (10,978 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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.