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Mitwaba fire, 8 July 2020 Mitwaba

Out · last detection 16 Jul 2020, 11:58 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2020 in Mitwaba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,590 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 45th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 88 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2020, of 165.

Burnt area
6,590ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
8 Jul 2020 – 16 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
8 Jul
2020
Heat detections
204
in a single hotspot: 302 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516

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
59km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,123 ha in 2016, 1,686 ha in 2017, 882 ha in 2018, 4,065 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,003 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mitwaba where it started
    6,629 ha reached on 8 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)
8 Jul 23.3 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Jul 23.6 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Jul 23.7 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Jul 23.8 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
12 Jul 24.2 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Jul 22.6 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jul 23.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Jul 22.1 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Jul 20.8 °C 32 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jul after 18.2 °C 32 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul after 17.8 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jul after 19.2 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Jul after 20.5 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Jul after 21.2 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Jul after 21.1 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Jul after 21.0 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Jul after 20.5 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jul after 20.1 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Jul after 20.0 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jul 2020
After · 23 Jul 2020

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 · 204Every 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 8 July 2020 and 16 July 2020: 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 6,590 hectares (65.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mitwaba (6,629 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.2 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 59 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

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.