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CG · Republic of the Congo · –

Mayama fire, 20 July 2016 Mayama

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2016, 12:44 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2016 in Mayama, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,996 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Pool since 2016 (of 332 with a page). The largest in Republic of the Congo in 2016, of 98.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ngabé · 2026Mayama · 2019Mayama · 2026Mayama · 2024

Burnt area
10,996ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
20 Jul 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Jul
2016
Heat detections
352
in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
76MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul11 Aug
9 Aug 2016

How it evolved, day by day

20 Jul 2016 · 5 MW · 1 24 Jul 2016 · 28 MW · 11 25 Jul 2016 · 2 MW · 1 26 Jul 2016 · 89 MW · 9 27 Jul 2016 · 25 MW · 5 28 Jul 2016 · 125 MW · 14 29 Jul 2016 · 38 MW · 16 30 Jul 2016 · 50 MW · 14 31 Jul 2016 · 88 MW · 15 1 Aug 2016 · 264 MW · 52 2 Aug 2016 · 27 MW · 19 3 Aug 2016 · 218 MW · 67 4 Aug 2016 · 100 MW · 32 5 Aug 2016 · 101 MW · 29 6 Aug 2016 · 143 MW · 23 7 Aug 2016 · 38 MW · 23 8 Aug 2016 · 11 MW · 4 9 Aug 2016 · 19 MW · 17
20 Jul 27 Jul 1 Aug 4 Aug 8 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
40km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.8 mm on 15 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.9% of the area of London (110 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Mayama where it started
    11,066 ha reached on 20 Jul
    1.5 %

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)
20 Jul 29.3 °C 56 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
21 Jul 28.2 °C 59 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
22 Jul 25.5 °C 65 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
23 Jul 29.0 °C 55 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
24 Jul 28.0 °C 55 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
25 Jul 26.6 °C 54 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Jul 28.2 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
27 Jul 29.9 °C 48 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Jul 29.6 °C 51 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
29 Jul 29.6 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
30 Jul 29.2 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
31 Jul 29.9 °C 52 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
1 Aug 32.1 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Aug 27.2 °C 58 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Aug 29.5 °C 50 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Aug 30.6 °C 49 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Aug 29.1 °C 52 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Aug 28.7 °C 54 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
7 Aug 28.3 °C 54 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Aug 29.1 °C 52 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
9 Aug 31.7 °C 50 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
10 Aug 28.5 °C 59 % 27 km/h 1.4 mm Low 9
11 Aug 29.3 °C 58 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 15
12 Aug after 30.2 °C 54 % 33 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
13 Aug after 31.2 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
14 Aug after 29.9 °C 58 % 24 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 18
15 Aug after 30.8 °C 55 % 26 km/h 6.8 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2016
After · 18 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 · 352Every 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 Republic of the Congo

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mayama fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 July 2016 to 11 August 2016 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 July 2016 to 9 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,996 hectares (110.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mayama (11,066 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 40 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 ADM2). 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 9 August 2016 → 11 August 2016.
  2. Start date: 23 July 2016 → 20 July 2016.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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 23 July 2016 to 9 August 2016. 352 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.