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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Lubao fire, 7 June 2016 Lubao

Out · last detection 14 Jun 2016, 22:57 UTC

The fire started on 7 June 2016 in Lubao, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,523 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Lomami since 2016 (of 66 with a page). Number 80 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.4 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
6,523ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
7 Jun 2016 – 14 Jun 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
7 Jun
2016
Heat detections
217
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Jun 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jun14 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121314

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
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 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. Lubao where it started
    6,564 ha reached on 7 Jun
    0.3 %

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.

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)
7 Jun 33.3 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Jun 33.2 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Jun 33.1 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jun 32.9 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jun 34.0 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Jun 34.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Jun 34.0 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Jun 32.8 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Jun after 32.6 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jun after 32.2 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jun after 31.3 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Jun after 31.4 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jun after 33.2 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jun after 33.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jun after 29.4 °C 41 % 25 km/h 0.5 mm High 29
22 Jun after 31.1 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Jun after 32.1 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jun after 31.4 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 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 · 217Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lubao fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 June 2016 and 14 June 2016: 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 6,523 hectares (65.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lubao (6,564 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.