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Manono fire, 14 July 2022 Manono

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2022, 11:59 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2022 in Manono, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,783 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 160th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 74 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2022, of 106.

Burnt area
5,783ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
14 Jul 2022 – 22 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
14 Jul
2022
Heat detections
163
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul22 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

141516171819202122

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
45km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 31 Jul.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,980 ha in 2016, 2,031 ha in 2017, 1,229 ha in 2018, 32 ha in 2019, 1,473 ha in 2020, 1,308 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,445 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manono where it started
    5,814 ha reached on 13 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)
14 Jul 33.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jul 34.3 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jul 33.9 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Jul 32.9 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jul 32.9 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jul 33.5 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jul 34.1 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jul 33.2 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jul 34.1 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jul after 34.1 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul after 34.0 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jul after 34.3 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Jul after 34.5 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Jul after 34.5 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jul after 33.3 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jul after 32.4 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
30 Jul after 33.1 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jul after 32.8 °C 38 % 22 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2022
After · 29 Jul 2022

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 · 163Every 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 14 July 2022 and 22 July 2022: 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 5,783 hectares (57.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manono (5,814 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.