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Sandoa fire, 1 August 2023 Sandoa

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2023, 12:18 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2023 in Sandoa, Congo - Kinshasa, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,660 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 20th largest in Lualaba since 2016 (of 91 with a page). Number 19 in Congo - Kinshasa in 2023, of 76.

Burnt area
8,660ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
1 Aug 2023 – 9 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
territories
Started on
1 Aug
2023
Heat detections
273
in a single hotspot: 94 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

123456789

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
43km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,156 ha in 2016, 4,103 ha in 2017, 3,488 ha in 2018, 1,705 ha in 2019, 3,066 ha in 2020, 2,488 ha in 2021, 2,862 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,546 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sandoa where it started
    8,578 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.3 %

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 Aug 33.1 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Aug 32.4 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Aug 31.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Aug 30.7 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Aug 30.6 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Aug 31.7 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Aug 32.3 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Aug 32.1 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Aug 32.5 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Aug after 31.9 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Aug after 32.6 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug after 33.2 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Aug after 32.5 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Aug after 33.5 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Aug after 33.5 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Aug after 33.8 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug after 33.4 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Aug after 34.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug after 33.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2023
After · 16 Aug 2023

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 · 273Every 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 1 August 2023 and 9 August 2023: 9 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 8,660 hectares (86.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sandoa (8,578 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
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.