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Kazumba fire, 15 July 2020 Kazumba

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2020, 11:09 UTC

The fire started on 15 July 2020 in Kazumba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,019 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Central Kasai since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 20 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2020, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kazumba · 2020Kazumba · 2024Kazumba · 2017Kazumba · 2026

Burnt area
18,019ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
15 Jul 2020 – 8 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
15 Jul
2020
Heat detections
968
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
451MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jul8 Aug
9 Aug 2020

How it evolved, day by day

16 Jul 2020 · 48 MW · 6 17 Jul 2020 · 264 MW · 25 18 Jul 2020 · 207 MW · 31 19 Jul 2020 · 132 MW · 19 20 Jul 2020 · 716 MW · 69 21 Jul 2020 · 786 MW · 78 22 Jul 2020 · 527 MW · 45 23 Jul 2020 · 1,576 MW · 133 24 Jul 2020 · 418 MW · 40 25 Jul 2020 · 246 MW · 15 27 Jul 2020 · 2,285 MW · 204 28 Jul 2020 · 341 MW · 26 30 Jul 2020 · 128 MW · 23 31 Jul 2020 · 1,196 MW · 121 1 Aug 2020 · 629 MW · 64 3 Aug 2020 · 111 MW · 13 4 Aug 2020 · 19 MW · 5 5 Aug 2020 · 63 MW · 12 6 Aug 2020 · 56 MW · 12 7 Aug 2020 · 75 MW · 9 8 Aug 2020 · 97 MW · 17 9 Aug 2020 · 9 MW · 1
16 Jul 20 Jul 24 Jul 27 Jul 30 Jul 4 Aug 8 Aug

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
37km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,197 ha in 2016, 7,710 ha in 2017, 1,561 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,219 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 11% of the area of London (180 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Kazumba where it started
    18,130 ha reached on 16 Jul
    1.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area22 ha
Residents≈ 8,100

Inside the perimeter there were about 22 hectares of built-up land and about 8,100 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
15 Jul 29.3 °C 45 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Jul 32.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jul 30.8 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul 30.2 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jul 30.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Jul 31.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul 32.6 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Jul 32.8 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jul 32.5 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jul 32.1 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jul 31.7 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jul 32.5 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Jul 31.7 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jul 31.3 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Jul 31.7 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jul 32.9 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Jul 33.7 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Aug 32.6 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug 32.8 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Aug 32.2 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug 32.4 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Aug 28.8 °C 53 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Aug 30.3 °C 48 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
7 Aug 29.8 °C 52 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Aug 30.7 °C 48 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Aug after 29.8 °C 48 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
10 Aug after 29.0 °C 53 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
11 Aug after 30.3 °C 48 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
12 Aug after 30.0 °C 50 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
13 Aug after 31.2 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Aug after 29.8 °C 43 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
15 Aug after 28.9 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm High 23
16 Aug after 32.0 °C 41 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Aug after 31.7 °C 51 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
18 Aug after 30.6 °C 53 % 26 km/h 0.5 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jul 2020
After · 15 Aug 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 · 968Every 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kazumba fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 July 2020 to 8 August 2020 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 July 2020 to 1 August 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,019 hectares (180.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kazumba (18,130 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 37 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo (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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 1 August 2020 → 8 August 2020.
  2. Start date: 17 July 2020 → 15 July 2020.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 July 2020 to 1 August 2020. 968 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.