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Rungu fire, January 2016 Rungu

Out · last detection 6 Feb 2016, 12:15 UTC

The fire started on 27 January 2016 in Rungu, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,107 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 57th largest in Upper Uele since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 59 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
7,107ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
27 Jan 2016 – 5 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
27 Jan
2016
Heat detections
201
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jan5 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2728293031123456

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
42km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Rungu where it started
    7,156 ha reached on 21 Jan
    0.8 %

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)
27 Jan 31.9 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Jan 32.3 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jan 32.5 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jan 33.3 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jan 33.8 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Feb 34.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Feb 34.9 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Feb 35.3 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Feb 36.4 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Feb 37.4 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Feb after 36.8 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Feb after 36.1 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Feb after 32.9 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Feb after 34.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Feb after 35.5 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Feb after 35.7 °C 10 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Feb after 35.3 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Feb after 35.4 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Feb after 35.0 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Feb after 34.5 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jan 2016
After · 12 Feb 2016

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 · 201Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Rungu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 January 2016 and 5 February 2016: 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 7,107 hectares (71.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rungu (7,156 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.