Burned area
satellite only1,429ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 25 May 2021 – 30 May 2021
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CG · Republic of the Congo · –
Ngabé fire, May 2021 Ngabé
Out · last detection 30 May 2021, 12:37 UTC
The fire started on 25 May 2021 in Ngabé, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,429 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 79th largest in Pool since 2016 (of 202 with a page). Number 15 in Republic of the Congo in 2021, of 50.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Okoyo · 2019Mayama · 2021Ngabé · 2024Ngabé · 2026
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-05matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only6days
25 May 2021 to 30 May 2021: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 30 May 2021, 12:37 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only25 May 2021
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 25 May 2021
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only21
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 60 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 25 May 2021 – 30 May 2021
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only480MW
Total radiative power on 28 May 2021; hotspots that day: 15.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 28 May 2021
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model2.9FWI · very low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 2.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 25 May 2021, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model32.7°C · 43% RH
High of 32.7 °C and minimum humidity of 43% on 28 May 2021; gusts of 32 km/h on 30 May 2021.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 25 May 2021 – 30 May 2021
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logName: Madingo-Kayes → Ngabé.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 28 May 2021 → 30 May 2021.
-
logStart date: 27 May 2021 → 25 May 2021.
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/ngabe-2021-05?v=2026-11-05A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire ngabe-2021-05.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-05-25 | 2 | 33 | 31.8 | 21.8 | 55 | 6.8 | 30.6 | 0.9 | 2.9 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2021-05-26 | 0 | 0 | 31.7 | 21.1 | 49 | 6.9 | 27.7 | 0.5 | 5.2 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-05-27 | 3 | 104 | 32 | 20.7 | 44 | 8.7 | 25.6 | 0 | 7.3 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-05-28 | 15 | 480 | 32.7 | 20.5 | 43 | 7.2 | 22.3 | 0.2 | 8 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-05-29 | 0 | 0 | 32.6 | 21.1 | 51 | 4.8 | 22 | 0.1 | 7.8 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-05-30 | 1 | 3 | 31.2 | 22.1 | 52 | 9.8 | 32 | 0 | 9.4 | bajo | 1 |
| 2021-05-31 | 0 | 0 | 32.7 | 23.6 | 48 | 12.8 | 32 | 0 | 10.9 | bajo | 0 |
| 2021-06-01 | 0 | 0 | 31.6 | 22.5 | 46 | 13.3 | 32.4 | 0.2 | 11.6 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-06-02 | 0 | 0 | 30.6 | 22.4 | 53 | 18.1 | 41 | 0.4 | 13.2 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-06-03 | 0 | 0 | 31.7 | 21 | 48 | 9 | 25.6 | 0 | 10.5 | bajo | 0 |
| 2021-06-04 | 0 | 0 | 31.9 | 21.1 | 49 | 8.2 | 29.9 | 0 | 10.7 | bajo | 0 |
| 2021-06-05 | 0 | 0 | 31.6 | 22.4 | 51 | 9.5 | 28.8 | 0.2 | 11.5 | moderado | 0 |
| 2021-06-06 | 0 | 0 | 29.1 | 21.6 | 62 | 11.6 | 28.8 | 3.8 | 1.7 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 1,429ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 25 May 2021 – 30 May 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 25 May
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 21
- in a single hotspot: 60 MW
- Danger at start
- 3
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 155MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
25 May30 May
30 May 2021
How it evolved, day by day
25 May
27 May
28 May
30 May
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
32km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 6 Jun.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
Ngabé where it started1,439 ha reached on 25 May0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 May | 31.8 °C | 55 % | 31 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very low 3 |
| 26 May | 31.7 °C | 49 % | 28 km/h | 0.5 mm | Low 5 |
| 27 May | 32.0 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 28 May | 32.7 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 8 |
| 29 May | 32.6 °C | 51 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 30 May | 31.2 °C | 52 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 31 May after | 32.7 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 1 Jun after | 31.6 °C | 46 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 2 Jun after | 30.6 °C | 53 % | 41 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 3 Jun after | 31.7 °C | 48 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 4 Jun after | 31.9 °C | 49 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 5 Jun after | 31.6 °C | 51 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 6 Jun after | 29.1 °C | 62 % | 29 km/h | 3.8 mm | Very low 2 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 2.9, a minimum humidity of 55% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 26.
FWI at the start
2.9
Minimum humidity
55 %
Days without rain
2
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Ngabé fire, May 2021
1,429 ha
6 days
FWI 2.9
Min. humidity 55 %
Okoyo fire, August 2019
2,201 ha
4 days
FWI 3.0
Min. humidity 55 %
217 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.1 mm on 22 Aug.
Mayama fire, August 2021
1,059 ha
1 day
FWI 3.8
Min. humidity 57 %
57 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mayama fire, May 2016
2,492 ha
3 days
FWI 3.6
Min. humidity 57 %
72 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 26 May.
Djambala fire, May 2024
1,007 ha
2 days
FWI 6.5
Min. humidity 55 %
72 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.1 mm on 21 May.
Djambala fire, July 2017
1,600 ha
3 days
FWI 4.3
Min. humidity 55 %
62 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.4 mm on 4 Aug.
What happened to them
- 3 days
- median duration
- 1,278 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.2 mm
- rain at the end (median; 25 of 26 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (1,429 ha against a median of 1,278 ha) and lasted 6 days, against 3 days.
In 1 of 26, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
3.8 mmfirst rain
6 Jun7 days after it ended
32km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 30 May, and on 6 Jun 3.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 25 of 26, with a median of 2.2 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 18 May 2021
After · 6 Jun 2021
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 21Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ngabé fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 May 2021 to 30 May 2021 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 May 2021 to 28 May 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,429 hectares (14.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ngabé (1,439 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, class Low.
- 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 ADM2). It is not an official report.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 26. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 1,278 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 1 of 26, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.2 mm.
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 · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: Madingo-Kayes → Ngabé.
- Last day with fire: 28 May 2021 → 30 May 2021.
- Start date: 27 May 2021 → 25 May 2021.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 May 2021 to 28 May 2021. 21 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 (Map Library 2007, nombres de Wikidata) (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.