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Mitwaba fire, 5 July 2018 Mitwaba

Out · last detection 16 Jul 2018, 23:09 UTC

The fire started on 5 July 2018 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,987 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 47 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,987ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
5 Jul 2018 – 16 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
5 Jul
2018
Heat detections
313
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

5678910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

23°high
50km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,723 ha in 2016, 204 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,778 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mitwaba where it started
    7,033 ha reached on 5 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)
5 Jul 21.9 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Jul 21.1 °C 30 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Jul 21.3 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Jul 21.4 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Jul 22.3 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Jul 22.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Jul 22.9 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jul 22.9 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Jul 22.6 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jul 23.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jul 23.3 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Jul 22.4 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Jul after 20.7 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Jul after 20.4 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jul after 20.5 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jul after 20.5 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Jul after 21.7 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Jul after 22.3 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Jul after 21.6 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jul after 20.7 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Jul after 21.3 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jul after 22.1 °C 29 % 31 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 · 28 Jun 2018
After · 23 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 · 313Every 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 5 July 2018 and 16 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 6,987 hectares (69.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitwaba (7,033 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 23.4 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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

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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.