Skip to content
worldfires
CD · Congo - Kinshasa · →

Moba fire, 1 October 2022 Moba

Out · last detection 11 Oct 2022, 11:40 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2022 in Moba, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,870 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 152th largest in Tanganyika since 2016 (of 232 with a page). Number 71 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2022, of 106.

Burnt area
5,870ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
1 Oct 2022 – 10 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
1 Oct
2022
Heat detections
236
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Oct 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct10 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
45km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,816 ha in 2016, 1,795 ha in 2017, 138 ha in 2018, 2,032 ha in 2019, 3 ha in 2020, 542 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,435 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Moba where it started
    5,910 ha reached on 1 Oct
    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)
1 Oct 24.8 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 17
2 Oct 27.4 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
3 Oct 24.8 °C 38 % 27 km/h 2.3 mm Low 6
4 Oct 25.2 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 15
5 Oct 27.0 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Oct 27.0 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 Oct 26.9 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Oct 26.2 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Oct 26.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Oct 26.1 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
11 Oct after 26.0 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
12 Oct after 26.5 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
13 Oct after 27.1 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Oct after 27.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Oct after 27.2 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Oct after 25.5 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
17 Oct after 25.7 °C 37 % 37 km/h 2.4 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2022
After · 17 Oct 2022

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 · 236Every 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 Moba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 October 2022 and 10 October 2022: 10 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 5,870 hectares (58.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Moba (5,910 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.