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Lubefu fire, July 2016 Lubefu

Out · last detection 20 Jul 2016, 12:19 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2016 in Lubefu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,067 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 117th largest in Sankuru since 2016 (of 187 with a page). Number 61 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
7,067ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
8 Jul 2016 – 19 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
8 Jul
2016
Heat detections
353
in a single hotspot: 245 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul19 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617181920

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
40km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 25 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Lubefu where it started
    7,114 ha reached on 1 Jul
    0.5 %

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)
8 Jul 32.6 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Jul 33.4 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jul 33.0 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Jul 32.6 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Jul 31.5 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jul 32.6 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jul 32.4 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul 32.1 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul 33.5 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jul 33.5 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jul 33.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jul 33.1 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jul after 32.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul after 32.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Jul after 33.7 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Jul after 32.5 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jul after 29.8 °C 49 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
25 Jul after 32.7 °C 41 % 26 km/h 4.1 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jul 2016
After · 26 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 · 353Every 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 Lubefu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 July 2016 and 19 July 2016: 12 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 7,067 hectares (70.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lubefu (7,114 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.