Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Mitwaba fire, 18 July 2016 Mitwaba

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2016, 12:24 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2016 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,980 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 23th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 46 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
7,980ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
18 Jul 2016 – 25 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
18 Jul
2016
Heat detections
234
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul25 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1819202122232425

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

28°high
55km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Mitwaba where it started
    8,039 ha reached on 18 Jul
    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)
18 Jul 24.0 °C 30 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Jul 23.3 °C 28 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Jul 22.9 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Jul 23.9 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jul 25.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Jul 26.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jul 27.5 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Jul 27.1 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Jul after 27.4 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Jul after 26.5 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jul after 28.5 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul after 27.7 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jul after 27.1 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Jul after 26.9 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Aug after 27.1 °C 23 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Aug after 27.2 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Aug after 27.5 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Aug after 26.7 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2016
After · 1 Aug 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 · 234Every 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 Mitwaba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 July 2016 and 25 July 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 7,980 hectares (79.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitwaba (8,039 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.