Mitwaba fire, July 2022 Mitwaba
The fire started on 14 July 2022 in Mitwaba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,189 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 49th largest in Haut-Katanga since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 59 in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2022, of 106.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 6,189ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 14 Jul 2022 – 20 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- territories
- Started on
- 14 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 188
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 96MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,561 ha in 2016, 1,097 ha in 2017, 2,356 ha in 2018, 3,520 ha in 2019, 3,018 ha in 2020, 2,027 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,007 ha that had burned before.
- 3,615 ha Mitwaba fire, June 2016 5,187 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,845 ha Mitwaba fire, July 2020 6,590 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,027 ha Mitwaba fire, July 2021 5,009 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,024 ha Mitwaba fire, June 2018 16,851 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 139 ha Mitwaba fire, July 2020 7,351 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 16 ha Mitwaba fire, June 2016 5,357 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Mitwaba where it started6,226 ha reached on 10 Jul0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Jul | 22.6 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Jul | 22.2 °C | 40 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Jul | 22.2 °C | 36 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Jul | 21.3 °C | 35 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Jul | 21.2 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Jul | 22.3 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 20 Jul | 22.6 °C | 41 % | 35 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 27 |
| 21 Jul after | 22.1 °C | 40 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Jul after | 22.9 °C | 37 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Jul after | 22.2 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Jul after | 22.3 °C | 37 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Jul after | 22.0 °C | 40 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Jul after | 22.5 °C | 40 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Jul after | 22.5 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 28 Jul after | 22.2 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Jul after | 22.9 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 30 Jul after | 23.5 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 188Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mitwaba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 July 2022 and 20 July 2022: 7 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 6,189 hectares (61.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mitwaba (6,226 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 22.6 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Democratic Republic of the Congo (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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 188 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.