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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Kamina fire, 4 September 2020 Kamina

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2020, 11:14 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2020 in Kamina, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,735 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 114th largest in Haut-Lomami since 2016 (of 172 with a page). Number 123 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
5,735ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
4 Sept 2020 – 15 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
4 Sept
2020
Heat detections
188
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111215

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
35km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 16 Sept.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 147 ha in 2016, 132 ha in 2017, 3,105 ha in 2018, 1,938 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,953 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kamina where it started
    5,791 ha reached on 2 Sept
    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)
4 Sept 33.2 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Sept 33.3 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Sept 33.7 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Sept 32.7 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Sept 33.1 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Sept 33.6 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Sept 32.4 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Sept 33.1 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Sept 32.4 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Sept 32.9 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Sept 33.9 °C 20 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept 33.3 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept after 30.2 °C 46 % 27 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2020
After · 22 Sept 2020

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 · 188Every 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 4 September 2020 and 15 September 2020: 12 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 5,735 hectares (57.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kamina (5,791 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.