Kamina fire, 12 August 2019 Kamina
The fire started on 12 August 2019 in Kamina, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,145 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 158th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 108 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019, of 115.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Kamina · 2026Kamina · 2016Kamina · 2026Kamina · 2019
- Burnt area
- 5,145ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 12 Aug 2019 – 16 Aug 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 12 Aug
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 179
- in a single hotspot: 156 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.4GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
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: 1,603 ha in 2016, 178 ha in 2017, 1,200 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,466 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Kamina where it started5,183 ha reached on 12 Aug0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Aug | 32.1 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 13 Aug | 33.1 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 14 Aug | 33.0 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 15 Aug | 30.7 °C | 13 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 16 Aug | 29.6 °C | 16 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 17 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Aug after | 31.7 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 20 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 21 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 22 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 24 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Aug after | 32.4 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 179Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,978 haKamina19 August 2026 · 13 days · 2 km away
- 6,131 haKamina8 August 2016 · 2 days · 13 km away
- 11,312 haKamina12 August 2026 · 14 days · 24 km away
- 6,952 haKamina12 August 2019 · 15 days · 28 km away
- 12,191 haKamina13 August 2026 · 11 days · 30 km away
- 5,571 haKamina11 August 2026 · 9 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kamina fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 August 2019 and 16 August 2019: 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 5,145 hectares (51.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kamina (5,183 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo (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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 179 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.