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Kasongo fire, June 2020 Kasongo

Out · last detection 26 Jun 2020, 11:33 UTC

The fire started on 18 June 2020 in Kasongo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,945 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Maniema since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 116 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
5,945ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
18 Jun 2020 – 26 Jun 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
18 Jun
2020
Heat detections
161
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jun 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jun26 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,591 ha in 2016, 3,261 ha in 2017, 2,380 ha in 2018, 3,151 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,696 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kasongo where it started
    5,989 ha reached on 17 Jun
    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)
18 Jun 34.8 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Jun 35.1 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Jun 34.4 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jun 34.8 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Jun 33.9 °C 30 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Jun 35.3 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jun 36.1 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jun 36.2 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Jun 32.8 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Jun after 33.3 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
28 Jun after 34.8 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jun after 37.1 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jun after 35.7 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Jul after 33.6 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Jul after 35.1 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Jul after 36.5 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Jul after 36.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Jul after 35.8 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jul after 35.1 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jun 2020
After · 3 Jul 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 · 161Every 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 18 June 2020 and 26 June 2020: 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 5,945 hectares (59.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kasongo (5,989 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.