Fire near Zaïre (AO)
7.46°S, 13.44°E
What the satellites measured
This fire is not in the last thirty days of the fire list, but detections remain around this point: the curve below is rebuilt from the raw pixels, which are kept for a hundred days.
“Detected extent” is not “burned area”: it is the union of the ground footprints of the satellite pixels, and a pixel counts in full (375 m for VIIRS, 1 km for MODIS) even when only a forest edge is burning. Compared with press figures it is in practice one and a half to three times the area reported. Detections taken at the edge of the scan swath, too coarse to measure anything at all, are excluded. These figures come from thermal detection and are not an official assessment: only the emergency services and the competent authorities are authoritative.
Replay how the fire spread
The map is framed on this fire's footprint and loads only its detections. The timeline below covers the period in which satellites saw it, from the first to the last detection, with twelve hours before and twenty-four after; the ticks on the bar mark the emergency services' announcements that fall within it. The cursor opens on the most powerful pass, and playback replays the whole fire in about thirty seconds. “1 h” shows what is burning within an hour of the chosen moment : the map then follows the power curve below and empties when it falls. “24 h” stacks twenty-four hours : a fire stays visible between two satellite passes, which come two to four times a day. Both are true, but they say different things.
How the radiative power evolved
One point per satellite pass: the sum of the fire radiative power measured over the fire. This is the curve that says whether the fire eased off or picked up again, which no cumulative figure shows. The window covers 30 days; beyond that, clustering would merge two successive fires in the same place.
Fire dynamics
Loading history…
Satellite passes in detail
| Pass | Power summed over the pass | Detections | Sensor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 October at 17:24 | 37 MW | 2 | Met12 |
| 21 October at 17:20 | 41 MW | 1 | Met10 |
| 21 October at 17:18 | 203 MW | 4 | Aqua |
| 20 October at 19:54 | 17 MW | 1 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 19:44 | 33 MW | 1 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 19:34 | 59 MW | 3 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 19:14 | 21 MW | 1 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 19:04 | 42 MW | 2 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 18:54 | 37 MW | 2 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 18:44 | 63 MW | 3 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 18:34 | 85 MW | 3 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 18:24 | 41 MW | 2 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 18:14 | 56 MW | 2 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 18:04 | 30 MW | 2 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 17:54 | 35 MW | 2 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 16:44 | 32 MW | 2 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 16:34 | 31 MW | 2 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 16:24 | 35 MW | 1 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 16:14 | 64 MW | 1 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 14:49 | 97 MW | 8 | N20 |
| 20 October at 14:29 | 38 MW | 1 | N |
| 20 October at 14:14 | 12 MW | 1 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 14:04 | 102 MW | 5 | Met12 |
| 20 October at 13:53 | 19 MW | 3 | N21 |
| 15 October at 16:48 | 24 MW | 3 | Aqua |
| 15 October at 14:44 | 106 MW | 6 | N20 |
| 15 October at 14:23 | 11 MW | 1 | N |
| 15 October at 13:49 | 5 MW | 1 | N21 |
| 13 October at 17:09 | 246 MW | 6 | Aqua |
| 13 October at 15:23 | 35 MW | 7 | N20 |
| 13 October at 15:01 | 208 MW | 14 | N |
| 13 October at 14:25 | 193 MW | 16 | N21 |
| 7 October at 15:33 | 35 MW | 5 | N20 |
| 7 October at 15:14 | 150 MW | 10 | N |
| 7 October at 14:38 | 124 MW | 9 | N21 |
| 5 October at 17:01 | 9 MW | 1 | Aqua |
| 5 October at 15:16 | 13 MW | 3 | N21 |
| 5 October at 14:32 | 40 MW | 3 | N20 |
| 5 October at 14:12 | 124 MW | 6 | N |
| 4 October at 14:49 | 4 MW | 1 | N20 |
| 3 October at 15:08 | 4 MW | 1 | N20 |
| 3 October at 14:51 | 2 MW | 1 | N |
| 28 September at 03:09 | 4 MW | 2 | N21 |
| 24 September at 16:37 | 219 MW | 4 | Aqua |
| 24 September at 15:23 | 94 MW | 8 | N21 |
| 24 September at 14:38 | 105 MW | 23 | N20 |
| 24 September at 14:17 | 60 MW | 10 | N |
| 24 September at 13:42 | 45 MW | 4 | N21 |
| 23 September at 21:45 | 19 MW | 3 | Terra |
| 23 September at 14:55 | 429 MW | 23 | N20 |
| 23 September at 14:36 | 521 MW | 29 | N |
| 23 September at 14:00 | 172 MW | 14 | N21 |
8 other fires near Zaïre (AO)
Separate fires, apart in time or in space, not pieces of this one. A single municipality can have several over one summer, and a forest massif often covers more than a hundred square kilometres.
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