How long did the Moba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2017 and 9 September 2017: 17 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 11,463 hectares (114.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Moba (11,556 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.

CD · Congo - Kinshasa · 2017-08-24 → 2017-09-09

Moba fire, 24 August 2017 Moba

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2017, 23:03 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2017 in Moba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,463 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 16 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2017, of 138.

Burnt area: 11,463ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 24 Aug 2017 – 9 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; territories
Started on: 24 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 463; in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start: 31; High · FWI index
Energy released: 4.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Sept 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

242526272829303112345678910

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

37km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,055 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

Moba where it started

11,556 ha reached on 22 Aug

0.4 %

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)
22 Aug	29.2 °C	32 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
23 Aug	30.1 °C	31 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 Aug	31.5 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Aug	31.5 °C	20 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
26 Aug	30.3 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
27 Aug	29.7 °C	30 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
28 Aug	30.2 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
29 Aug	28.7 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
30 Aug	30.6 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
31 Aug	31.5 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
1 Sept	31.8 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
2 Sept	30.4 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
3 Sept	29.4 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
4 Sept	28.5 °C	29 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Sept	30.1 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
6 Sept	30.1 °C	32 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
7 Sept	30.3 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
8 Sept	29.0 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Sept	30.5 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
10 Sept after	29.1 °C	33 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Sept after	31.3 °C	28 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Sept after	31.3 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
13 Sept after	30.1 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Sept after	31.2 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
15 Sept after	30.9 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
16 Sept after	31.0 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Sept after	30.3 °C	37 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
18 Sept after	30.2 °C	33 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
19 Sept after	31.0 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Sept after	30.8 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
21 Sept after	31.1 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
22 Sept after	30.1 °C	27 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
23 Sept after	29.9 °C	30 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
24 Sept after	31.0 °C	23 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
25 Sept after	30.9 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Sept after	27.6 °C	40 %	25 km/h	0.3 mm	High 28

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Aug 2017

After · 16 Sept 2017

Before After

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 · 463Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Congo - Kinshasa ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Moba fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2017 and 9 September 2017: 17 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 11,463 hectares (114.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Moba (11,556 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned