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Kenge fire, June 2016 Kenge

Out · last detection 15 Jun 2016, 13:15 UTC

The fire started on 6 June 2016 in Kenge, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,824 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Kwango since 2016 (of 219 with a page). Number 8 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
21,824ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
6 Jun 2016 – 14 Jun 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
6 Jun
2016
Heat detections
715
in a single hotspot: 243 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
22.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jun 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jun14 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
33km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kenge where it started
    21,981 ha reached on 30 May
    1.2 %

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)
30 May 29.9 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
31 May 30.8 °C 46 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 17
1 Jun 31.6 °C 46 % 32 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 4
2 Jun 29.7 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.2 mm Low 10
3 Jun 30.8 °C 38 % 19 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
4 Jun 28.6 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Jun 31.0 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
6 Jun 29.9 °C 45 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
7 Jun 29.4 °C 46 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
8 Jun 31.0 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
9 Jun 32.0 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Jun 30.6 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Jun 31.8 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Jun 31.8 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
13 Jun 31.6 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Jun 28.7 °C 40 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Jun after 28.2 °C 45 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Jun after 30.5 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Jun after 28.9 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Jun after 30.3 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Jun after 30.9 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Jun after 29.6 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Jun after 27.1 °C 46 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
22 Jun after 30.1 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Jun after 32.3 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Jun after 30.2 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Jun after 29.7 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jun after 30.5 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jun after 30.6 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Jun after 29.2 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
29 Jun after 29.2 °C 48 % 24 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 May 2016
After · 21 Jun 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 · 715Every 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 Kenge fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 June 2016 and 14 June 2016: 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 21,824 hectares (218.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kenge (21,981 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.