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Kazumba fire, July 2016 Kazumba

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2016, 12:43 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2016 in Kazumba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,339 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 76th largest in Central Kasai since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 126 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
5,339ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
7 Jul 2016 – 23 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
7 Jul
2016
Heat detections
307
in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul23 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

89101112131415161718192021222324

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
38km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 25 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kazumba where it started
    5,377 ha reached on 30 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)
7 Jul 32.2 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Jul 31.9 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jul 32.6 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jul 32.3 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Jul 31.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Jul 31.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Jul 31.5 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Jul 31.1 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul 32.0 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Jul 32.1 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Jul 32.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Jul 33.5 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Jul 32.6 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Jul 32.4 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jul 31.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jul 32.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Jul 33.1 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jul after 29.6 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
25 Jul after 30.1 °C 46 % 30 km/h 1.5 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2016
After · 30 Jul 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 · 307Every 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 Kazumba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 July 2016 and 23 July 2016: 17 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 5,339 hectares (53.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kazumba (5,377 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 38 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.