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Kasongo fire, June 2018 Kasongo

Out · last detection 18 Jun 2018, 12:30 UTC

The fire started on 3 June 2018 in Kasongo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,742 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Maniema since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 51 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
6,742ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
3 Jun 2018 – 17 Jun 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
3 Jun
2018
Heat detections
210
in a single hotspot: 78 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jun 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jun17 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

345678911121415161718

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
38km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 21 Jun.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,104 ha in 2016, 3,301 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,914 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kasongo where it started
    6,789 ha reached on 29 May
    0.4 %

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)
3 Jun 34.0 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
4 Jun 33.7 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Jun 32.9 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Jun 33.2 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Jun 33.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Jun 33.6 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Jun 34.0 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Jun 34.6 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Jun 35.5 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Jun 35.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Jun 35.0 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Jun 35.1 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Jun 35.6 °C 28 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Jun 36.6 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jun 36.0 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jun after 35.1 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jun after 33.0 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jun after 31.5 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Jun after 31.8 °C 48 % 22 km/h 2.1 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 May 2018
After · 24 Jun 2018

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 · 210Every 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 Kasongo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 June 2018 and 17 June 2018: 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 6,742 hectares (67.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kasongo (6,789 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.