Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Kamonia fire, July 2016 Kamonia

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2016, 12:25 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2016 in Kamonia, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,142 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 73th largest in Kasaï since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 137 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
5,142ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
26 Jul 2016 – 9 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
26 Jul
2016
Heat detections
315
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

262829303112345678910

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
36km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 18 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Kamonia where it started
    5,174 ha reached on 20 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)
26 Jul 31.2 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Jul 31.0 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jul 32.8 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
29 Jul 33.5 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Jul 32.2 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Jul 33.2 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
1 Aug 34.9 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug 33.9 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug 34.1 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Aug 34.9 °C 18 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Aug 34.3 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Aug 34.4 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Aug 34.4 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Aug 28.7 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
9 Aug 32.0 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Aug after 32.8 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Aug after 31.4 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Aug after 32.8 °C 37 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug after 33.1 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Aug after 33.1 °C 40 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
15 Aug after 31.1 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Aug after 32.5 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
17 Aug after 33.0 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
18 Aug after 31.9 °C 41 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jul 2016
After · 16 Aug 2016

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 · 315Every 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 Kamonia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 July 2016 and 9 August 2016: 15 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 5,142 hectares (51.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kamonia (5,174 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.