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Sandoa fire, 16 July 2016 Sandoa

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2016, 23:54 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2016 in Sandoa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,517 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Lualaba since 2016 (of 91 with a page). Number 19 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2016, of 153.

Burnt area
15,517ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
16 Jul 2016 – 28 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
16 Jul
2016
Heat detections
513
in a single hotspot: 225 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
47km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Sandoa where it started
    15,546 ha reached on 12 Jul
    0.5 %

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)
12 Jul 26.9 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Jul 27.9 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Jul 28.3 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Jul 28.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jul 29.1 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Jul 29.8 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Jul 29.9 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jul 28.3 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul 28.2 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Jul 29.0 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jul 29.4 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jul 30.3 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul 31.0 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jul 30.1 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jul 30.5 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jul 28.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul 30.9 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Jul after 33.1 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jul after 33.0 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul after 32.2 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug after 32.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Aug after 31.8 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Aug after 32.1 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Aug after 32.3 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Aug after 30.6 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Aug after 29.8 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Aug after 30.9 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
8 Aug after 30.2 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Aug after 31.2 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Aug after 32.1 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug after 31.1 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug after 32.9 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Aug after 33.6 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug after 32.5 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2016
After · 4 Aug 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 · 513Every 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 Sandoa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 July 2016 and 28 July 2016: 13 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 15,517 hectares (155.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sandoa (15,546 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.