Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Kole fire, 13 July 2020 Kole

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2020, 12:43 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2020 in Kole, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 32,588 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 6 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
32,588ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
13 Jul 2020 – 3 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
13 Jul
2020
Heat detections
1,578
in a single hotspot: 139 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
16.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul3 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192021222325262729303114

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
34km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 5 Aug.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 26,067 ha in 2016, 4,149 ha in 2017, 22,531 ha in 2018, 22,742 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 28,697 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kole where it started
    32,830 ha reached on 6 Jul
    1.8 %

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)
13 Jul 32.6 °C 43 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
14 Jul 31.6 °C 49 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
15 Jul 31.3 °C 49 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
16 Jul 31.0 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
17 Jul 31.7 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Jul 30.9 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jul 31.1 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jul 33.1 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul 33.8 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jul 33.6 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jul 31.7 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Jul 31.9 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jul 32.5 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Jul 33.6 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jul 32.3 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul 32.2 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jul 33.3 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul 33.9 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Jul 35.2 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Aug 32.9 °C 42 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Aug 32.4 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
3 Aug 33.7 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Aug after 31.9 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Aug after 30.1 °C 51 % 24 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jul 2020
After · 10 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 · 1,578Every 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 Kole fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 July 2020 and 3 August 2020: 22 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 32,588 hectares (325.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kole (32,830 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.