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Mitwaba fire, June 2018 Mitwaba

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2018, 12:16 UTC

The fire started on 28 June 2018 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,851 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 11 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
16,851ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
28 Jun 2018 – 9 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
28 Jun
2018
Heat detections
525
in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jun9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

28293012345678910

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
60km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,036 ha in 2016, 896 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,826 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mitwaba where it started
    16,955 ha reached on 28 Jun
    0.7 %

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)
28 Jun 22.6 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jun 23.2 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jun 23.1 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Jul 23.9 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Jul 24.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Jul 24.3 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Jul 23.1 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jul 22.1 °C 32 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Jul 21.0 °C 34 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Jul 21.4 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Jul 21.8 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Jul 22.2 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Jul after 23.0 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Jul after 23.1 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jul after 23.1 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jul after 22.9 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jul after 23.6 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jul after 23.2 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul after 22.4 °C 33 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Jul after 20.8 °C 35 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Jul after 20.4 °C 36 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jul after 20.9 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jul after 21.0 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Jul after 22.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jul after 22.6 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jun 2018
After · 16 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 · 525Every 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 28 June 2018 and 9 July 2018: 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 16,851 hectares (168.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitwaba (16,955 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.4 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.