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Kipushi fire, August 2019 Kipushi

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2019, 11:26 UTC

The fire started on 31 August 2019 in Kipushi, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,131 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 88th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 109 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2019, of 115.

Burnt area
5,131ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
31 Aug 2019 – 7 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
31 Aug
2019
Heat detections
154
in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Aug7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

31124567

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
50km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,584 ha in 2016, 727 ha in 2017, 1,033 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,944 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kipushi where it started
    5,164 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.6 %

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)
31 Aug 33.2 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Sept 34.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Sept 33.2 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Sept 30.5 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Sept 30.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Sept 32.2 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Sept 31.5 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Sept 28.4 °C 17 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Sept after 23.7 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Sept after 27.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Sept after 29.1 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept after 32.6 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Sept after 33.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 33.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Sept after 33.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept after 34.3 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Sept after 31.2 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Sept after 32.2 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Aug 2019
After · 14 Sept 2019

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 · 154Every 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 Kipushi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 August 2019 and 7 September 2019: 8 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 5,131 hectares (51.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kipushi (5,164 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.