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Kamina fire, 11 August 2019 Kamina

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2019, 12:42 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2019 in Kamina, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,112 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 160th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 110 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2019, of 115.

Burnt area
5,112ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
11 Aug 2019 – 19 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
11 Aug
2019
Heat detections
224
in a single hotspot: 141 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718

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
48km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,749 ha in 2016, 388 ha in 2017, 311 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,975 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kamina where it started
    5,156 ha reached on 11 Aug
    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)
11 Aug 32.0 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 32.8 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug 33.9 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug 34.0 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Aug 31.4 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Aug 30.1 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Aug 31.4 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Aug 32.8 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug 32.2 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Aug after 31.7 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Aug after 31.1 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Aug after 31.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Aug after 30.8 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Aug after 31.7 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Aug after 33.2 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Aug after 29.5 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
27 Aug after 31.5 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Aug after 32.9 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
29 Aug after 31.9 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2019
After · 26 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 · 224Every 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 11 August 2019 and 19 August 2019: 9 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 5,112 hectares (51.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kamina (5,156 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.