Burned area
satellite only1,528ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 6 Aug 2016 – 9 Aug 2016
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CG · Republic of the Congo · –
Mayama fire, 6 August 2016 Mayama
Out · last detection 9 Aug 2016, 12:45 UTC
The fire started on 6 August 2016 in Mayama, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,528 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 66th largest in Pool since 2016 (of 202 with a page). Number 28 in Republic of the Congo in 2016, of 98.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches 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 only4days
6 Aug 2016 to 9 Aug 2016: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 9 Aug 2016, 12:45 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 only6 Aug 2016
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 6 Aug 2016
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only29MW
Total radiative power on 6 August 2016; hotspots that day: 4.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 6 Aug 2016
+− 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
model21.5FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 36.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 6 Aug 2016, 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
model29.7°C · 51% RH
High of 29.7 °C and minimum humidity of 51% on 9 August 2016; gusts of 34 km/h on 7 August 2016.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 6 Aug 2016 – 9 Aug 2016
- 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
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logStart date: 30 July 2016 → 6 August 2016.
-
logStart date: 6 August 2016 → 30 July 2016.
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/mayama-2016-08-8?v=2026-10-27A 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 mayama-2016-08-8.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-08-06 | 4 | 29 | 26.7 | 17.6 | 54 | 12.5 | 30.2 | 0 | 21.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-08-07 | 11 | 26 | 26 | 17.1 | 56 | 14.3 | 34.2 | 0 | 21.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-08-08 | 2 | 2 | 27.6 | 16.6 | 51 | 9.5 | 24.1 | 0 | 17.7 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-08-09 | 3 | 10 | 29.7 | 18 | 51 | 4.7 | 30.2 | 0.2 | 17.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2016-08-10 | 0 | 0 | 26.4 | 20.1 | 62 | 11.2 | 26.3 | 0.3 | 19 | moderado | 0 |
| 2016-08-11 | 0 | 0 | 27.4 | 19.1 | 61 | 12.9 | 29.5 | 0.4 | 19.1 | moderado | 0 |
| 2016-08-12 | 0 | 0 | 28.6 | 19.5 | 56 | 12.4 | 31 | 1.2 | 20.5 | moderado | 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
- 1,528ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 6 Aug 2016 – 9 Aug 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 6 Aug
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 20
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 17MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
6 Aug9 Aug
9 Aug 2016
How it evolved, day by day
6 Aug
7 Aug
8 Aug
9 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
30°high
34km/h · peak gust
51%lowest humidity
It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 12 Aug.
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
-
Mayama where it started1,537 ha0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Aug | 26.7 °C | 54 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 7 Aug | 26.0 °C | 56 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 8 Aug | 27.6 °C | 51 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 9 Aug | 29.7 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 10 Aug after | 26.4 °C | 62 % | 26 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 11 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 61 % | 30 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 12 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 56 % | 31 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 21.5, a minimum humidity of 54% and 36 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 19.
FWI at the start
21.5
Minimum humidity
54 %
Days without rain
36
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Mayama fire, 6 August 2016
1,528 ha
4 days
FWI 21.5
Min. humidity 54 %
Djambala fire, July 2024
1,085 ha
4 days
FWI 19.0
Min. humidity 54 %
80 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Djambala fire, August 2024
1,308 ha
3 days
FWI 24.1
Min. humidity 51 %
84 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Djambala fire, July 2024
1,147 ha
2 days
FWI 17.4
Min. humidity 54 %
122 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Okoyo fire, July 2024
1,226 ha
8 days
FWI 18.5
Min. humidity 54 %
118 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 5 Aug.
Lékana fire, July 2024
1,334 ha
5 days
FWI 18.1
Min. humidity 57 %
108 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 5 Aug.
What happened to them
- 7 days
- median duration
- 1,237 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 1.2 mm
- rain at the end (median; 4 of 19 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (1,528 ha against a median of 1,237 ha) and lasted 4 days, against 7 days.
In 15 of 19, 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 1.2 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
1.2 mmfirst rain
12 Aug3 days after it ended
34km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 9 Aug, and on 12 Aug 1.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 4 of 19, with a median of 1.2 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 2017.
- 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 · 30 Jul 2016
After · 16 Aug 2016
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 · 0Every 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 Mayama fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 August 2016 and 9 August 2016: 4 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 1,528 hectares (15.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mayama (1,537 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 51 % and gusts hit 34 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 19. Their median duration was 7 days and their median area 1,237 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 15 of 19, 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 1.2 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 30 July 2016 → 6 August 2016.
- Start date: 6 August 2016 → 30 July 2016.
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.