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Mitwaba fire, 15 July 2018 Mitwaba

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2018, 23:59 UTC

The fire started on 15 July 2018 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,658 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 63th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 85 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2018, of 128.

Burnt area
5,658ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
15 Jul 2018 – 23 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
15 Jul
2018
Heat detections
146
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
618MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jul23 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
60km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 58 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 719 ha in 2016, 1,204 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,554 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mitwaba where it started
    5,691 ha reached on 12 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)
15 Jul 30.3 °C 25 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jul 29.3 °C 28 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jul 27.8 °C 29 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Jul 27.4 °C 30 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jul 27.8 °C 29 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jul 28.0 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Jul 29.1 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul 29.5 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jul 28.7 °C 23 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Jul after 27.9 °C 25 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Jul after 28.5 °C 25 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul after 29.6 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jul after 31.2 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul after 29.7 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Jul after 29.1 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul after 31.4 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Jul after 31.8 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Aug after 30.8 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug after 31.8 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jul 2018
After · 30 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 · 146Every 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 15 July 2018 and 23 July 2018: 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 5,658 hectares (56.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitwaba (5,691 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.