How long did the Kasongo-Lunda fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 August 2018 and 22 August 2018: 10 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 11,810 hectares (118.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Kasongo-Lunda (11,868 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2018-08-13 → 2018-08-22

Kasongo-Lunda fire, 13 August 2018 Kasongo-Lunda

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2018, 12:12 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2018 in Kasongo-Lunda, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,810 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 38th largest in Kwango since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 16 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area: 11,810ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 13 Aug 2018 – 22 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 13 Aug; 2018
Heat detections: 456; in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 3.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 22 Aug 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug22 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718192122

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

34km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 8 Sept.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,948 ha in 2016, 9,261 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,802 ha that had burned before.

7,935 ha Kasongo-Lunda fire, August 2017 11,963 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Kasongo-Lunda where it started

11,868 ha reached on 6 Aug

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)
6 Aug	34.5 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Aug	32.7 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
8 Aug	34.3 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
9 Aug	34.3 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Aug	34.9 °C	36 %	23 km/h	0.4 mm	High 34
11 Aug	33.3 °C	41 %	25 km/h	0.9 mm	High 23
12 Aug	32.7 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
13 Aug	31.4 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
14 Aug	31.4 °C	42 %	27 km/h	0.2 mm	High 28
15 Aug	32.4 °C	42 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
16 Aug	33.5 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
17 Aug	33.7 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
18 Aug	31.6 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
19 Aug	32.9 °C	28 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
20 Aug	33.1 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
21 Aug	33.5 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
22 Aug	32.5 °C	34 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
23 Aug after	32.2 °C	32 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
24 Aug after	33.5 °C	37 %	23 km/h	1.4 mm	Moderate 19
25 Aug after	33.8 °C	37 %	23 km/h	3.7 mm	Low 10
26 Aug after	31.0 °C	48 %	30 km/h	2.1 mm	Low 8
27 Aug after	33.9 °C	42 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
28 Aug after	35.3 °C	31 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Aug after	31.3 °C	44 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
30 Aug after	31.4 °C	38 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
31 Aug after	33.2 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
1 Sept after	34.2 °C	34 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
2 Sept after	34.3 °C	36 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
3 Sept after	34.1 °C	36 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
4 Sept after	33.2 °C	38 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
5 Sept after	33.7 °C	38 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
6 Sept after	31.1 °C	44 %	23 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 20
7 Sept after	34.2 °C	37 %	26 km/h	0.3 mm	High 26
8 Sept after	34.3 °C	36 %	21 km/h	1.9 mm	Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Aug 2018

After · 29 Aug 2018

Before After

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 · 456Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kasongo-Lunda fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 August 2018 and 22 August 2018: 10 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 11,810 hectares (118.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Kasongo-Lunda (11,868 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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.

Where it burned