Kigamba fire, June 2021 Kigamba, Cankuzo
The fire started on 11 June 2021 in Kigamba, Burundi, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,030 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 14th largest in Cankuzo since 2016 (of 16 with a page). The largest in Burundi in 2021, of 2.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,030ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 11 Jun 2021 – 13 Jun 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 11 Jun
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 27
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Energy released
- 254MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 406 ha in 2016, 190 ha in 2018, 463 ha in 2019, 229 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 825 ha that had burned before.
- 463 ha Kigamba fire, June 2019 2,736 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 406 ha Kigamba fire, June 2016 1,375 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 229 ha Buhinyuza fire, August 2020 2,151 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 190 ha Kigamba fire, June 2018 1,774 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Kigamba where it started888 ha reached on 11 Jun1.6 %
-
148 ha0.3 %
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 27Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kigamba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 June 2021 and 13 June 2021: 3 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 1,030 hectares (10.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kigamba (888 ha, 1.6 %); Cankuzo (148 ha, 0.3 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Burundi (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.
Report an error
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 (Public Domain). 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.