Madimba fire, June 2020 Madimba
The fire started on 26 June 2020 in Madimba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,472 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 14th largest in Kongo-Central since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 138 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2020, of 165.
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- Burnt area
- 5,472ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 26 Jun 2020 – 30 Jun 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 26 Jun
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 138
- in a single hotspot: 283 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 882MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,661 ha in 2017, 1,873 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,599 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Madimba where it started5,505 ha reached on 20 Jun0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jun | 27.4 °C | 49 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 27 Jun | 26.2 °C | 57 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 28 Jun | 29.6 °C | 43 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 29 Jun | 26.5 °C | 48 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 30 Jun | 29.0 °C | 46 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 1 Jul after | 27.5 °C | 52 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 2 Jul after | 28.6 °C | 46 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 3 Jul after | 27.7 °C | 58 % | 27 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 4 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 5 Jul after | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 6 Jul after | 29.5 °C | 43 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Jul after | 29.9 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 8 Jul after | 29.6 °C | 43 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 9 Jul after | 30.0 °C | 45 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 10 Jul after | 26.7 °C | 61 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 138Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Madimba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 June 2020 and 30 June 2020: 5 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 5,472 hectares (54.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Madimba (5,505 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Democratic Republic of the Congo (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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 138 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.