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Kongolo fire, July 2016 Kongolo

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2016, 11:41 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2016 in Kongolo, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,219 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 89th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 58 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
7,219ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
14 Jul 2016 – 22 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
14 Jul
2016
Heat detections
189
in a single hotspot: 242 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul22 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1415161819202122

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
48km/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

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kongolo where it started
    7,270 ha reached on 11 Jul
    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)
14 Jul 33.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jul 34.2 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jul 34.9 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Jul 35.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Jul 34.8 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Jul 34.4 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Jul 34.1 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Jul 34.2 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Jul 35.0 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Jul after 35.0 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul after 33.7 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jul after 33.6 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jul after 32.5 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul after 32.7 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Jul after 33.7 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul after 34.5 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Jul after 34.5 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jul after 34.8 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug after 35.8 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2016
After · 29 Jul 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 · 189Every 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 Kongolo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 July 2016 and 22 July 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 7,219 hectares (72.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kongolo (7,270 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.