Mayama fire, 19 July 2020 Mayama
The fire started on 19 July 2020 in Mayama, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,539 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 12th largest in Pool since 2016 (of 332 with a page). Number 2 in Republic of the Congo in 2020, of 75.
The power measured by the satellite is low (27.1 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: Mayama · 2018Mayama · 2017Mayama · 2018Mayama · 2019
- Burnt area
- 4,539ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 19 Jul 2020 – 29 Jul 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 19 Jul
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 119
- in a single hotspot: 27 MW
- Danger at start
- 13
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 58MW
- 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 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 54 ha in 2016, 504 ha in 2017, 1,084 ha in 2018, 312 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,790 ha that had burned before.
- 603 ha Mayama fire, August 2018 1,667 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 504 ha Mayama fire, August 2017 2,238 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 481 ha Mayama fire, August 2018 2,617 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 312 ha Mayama fire, July 2019 1,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 51 ha Mayama fire, June 2016 1,142 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Mayama fire, July 2016 1,116 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
-
Mayama where it started4,568 ha reached on 19 Jul0.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jul | 29.2 °C | 52 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 20 Jul | 27.4 °C | 61 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 21 Jul | 29.3 °C | 56 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 22 Jul | 29.7 °C | 58 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 23 Jul | 27.8 °C | 61 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 24 Jul | 29.1 °C | 57 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 25 Jul | 29.6 °C | 54 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 26 Jul | 29.6 °C | 54 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 27 Jul | 26.7 °C | 64 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 28 Jul | 28.0 °C | 57 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 29 Jul | 28.4 °C | 59 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 30 Jul after | 29.8 °C | 52 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 31 Jul after | 28.8 °C | 58 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 1 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 59 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 2 Aug after | 28.1 °C | 61 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 3 Aug after | 28.2 °C | 62 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 62 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 5 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 60 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 6 Aug after | 29.5 °C | 52 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 57 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 8 Aug after | 32.0 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
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 · 119Every 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 Mayama fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 July 2020 to 29 July 2020 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 July 2020 to 26 July 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,539 hectares (45.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mayama (4,568 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 52 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, class Moderate.
- 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.
- Last day with fire: 26 July 2020 → 29 July 2020.
- Start date: 20 July 2020 → 19 July 2020.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 July 2020 to 26 July 2020. 119 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.