Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Kamina fire, 21 July 2019 Kamina

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2019, 11:40 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2019 in Kamina, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,850 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 47th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 43 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2019, of 115.

Burnt area
7,850ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
21 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
21 Jul
2019
Heat detections
200
in a single hotspot: 134 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul31 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

222427282931

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
36km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 10 Aug.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,350 ha in 2016, 4,996 ha in 2017, 2,979 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,596 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kamina where it started
    7,887 ha reached on 22 Jul
    0.2 %

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)
21 Jul 33.0 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jul 31.8 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Jul 33.5 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jul 32.9 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jul 33.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Jul 33.0 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jul 31.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jul 31.7 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jul 32.6 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul 32.8 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul 33.8 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Aug after 33.8 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Aug after 33.3 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Aug after 31.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug after 33.5 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Aug after 35.6 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Aug after 33.5 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug after 36.3 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Aug after 32.9 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug after 33.6 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug after 31.8 °C 25 % 27 km/h 1.1 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2019
After · 7 Aug 2019

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 · 200Every 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 21 July 2019 and 31 July 2019: 11 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 7,850 hectares (78.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kamina (7,887 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.