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CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Manono fire, 12 July 2018 Manono

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2018, 11:52 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2018 in Manono, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,271 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 195th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 108 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
5,271ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
12 Jul 2018 – 21 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
12 Jul
2018
Heat detections
218
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

13141516171819202122

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
46km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 887 ha in 2016, 160 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 996 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manono where it started
    5,300 ha reached on 6 Jul
    0.2 %

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)
12 Jul 34.0 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jul 34.1 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jul 35.1 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Jul 34.9 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jul 33.3 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Jul 31.7 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Jul 31.5 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jul 31.5 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Jul 32.8 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jul 33.8 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Jul after 33.8 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Jul after 33.0 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Jul after 32.4 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jul after 33.2 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Jul after 32.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jul after 32.8 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jul after 30.2 °C 35 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul after 33.7 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Jul after 35.1 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Jul after 34.2 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2018
After · 28 Jul 2018

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 · 218Every 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 Manono fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 July 2018 and 21 July 2018: 10 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 5,271 hectares (52.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manono (5,300 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.