Bambama fire, 5 August 2020 Bambama, Mvouti
The fire started on 5 August 2020 in Bambama, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,257 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 14th largest in Pool since 2016 (of 333 with a page). Number 4 in Republic of the Congo in 2020, of 75.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,257ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 5 Aug 2020 – 9 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 5 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 110
- in a single hotspot: 59 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 115MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 16 Aug.
This area had burned before
9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 269 ha in 2017, 64 ha in 2018, 32 ha in 2019.
- 269 ha Bambama fire, July 2017 1,095 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 64 ha Mvouti fire, July 2018 1,351 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 32 ha Mvouti fire, July 2019 1,063 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Bambama where it started3,273 ha reached on 5 Aug0.4 %
-
1,010 ha reached on 8 Aug0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Aug | 25.7 °C | 62 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 6 Aug | 27.9 °C | 53 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Aug | 27.5 °C | 58 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 8 Aug | 30.4 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 9 Aug | 26.1 °C | 60 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 49 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 56 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 12 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 62 % | 22 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 56 % | 27 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 14 Aug after | 26.4 °C | 64 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 15 Aug after | 25.2 °C | 68 % | 30 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 16 Aug after | 29.1 °C | 57 % | 24 km/h | 1.3 mm | Low 10 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 110Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bambama fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 August 2020 and 9 August 2020: 5 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 4,257 hectares (42.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bambama (3,273 ha, 0.4 %); Mvouti (1,010 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Republic of the Congo (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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 110 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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 (Public Domain). 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.