Skip to content
worldfires
CG · Republic of the Congo · –

Mayama fire, 1 July 2023 Mayama

Out · last detection 7 Jul 2023, 12:39 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2023 in Mayama, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,337 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 95th largest in Pool since 2016 (of 202 with a page). Number 18 in Republic of the Congo in 2023, of 40.

Burnt area
1,337ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
1 Jul 2023 – 7 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Jul
2023
Heat detections
39
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
40MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul7 Jul
7 Jul 2023

How it evolved, day by day

1 Jul 2023 · 2 MW · 1 2 Jul 2023 · 118 MW · 6 3 Jul 2023 · 3 MW · 3 4 Jul 2023 · 14 MW · 4 5 Jul 2023 · 16 MW · 10 6 Jul 2023 · 111 MW · 5 7 Jul 2023 · 18 MW · 10
2 Jul 5 Jul 7 Jul

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
32km/h · peak gust
49%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2016, 520 ha in 2019, 733 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 984 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (13 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
    1,346 ha reached on 1 Jul
    0.2 %

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)
1 Jul 28.4 °C 55 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
2 Jul 28.1 °C 60 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
3 Jul 24.5 °C 69 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9
4 Jul 27.1 °C 59 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
5 Jul 24.5 °C 63 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
6 Jul 26.9 °C 58 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
7 Jul 29.6 °C 49 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
8 Jul after 25.2 °C 63 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
9 Jul after 25.8 °C 61 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
10 Jul after 26.6 °C 61 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
11 Jul after 26.3 °C 67 % 26 km/h 0.7 mm Low 7
12 Jul after 27.5 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
13 Jul after 28.0 °C 51 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
14 Jul after 30.2 °C 50 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
15 Jul after 28.7 °C 60 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
16 Jul after 29.6 °C 56 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
17 Jul after 26.1 °C 67 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 10.6, a minimum humidity of 55% and 14 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 24.

FWI at the start 10.6
Minimum humidity 55 %
Days without rain 14
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mayama fire, June 2019
1,995 ha 5 days FWI 9.7 Min. humidity 56 % 18 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
1,288 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 11 of 24 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,337 ha against a median of 1,288 ha) and lasted 7 days, against 3 days.

In 13 of 24, 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 1.6 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
32km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 7 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 24, with a median of 1.6 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jun 2023
After · 14 Jul 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 7 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 53 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak53 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM1076 µg/m³
Optical depth1.33
30 Jun3 Jul6 Jul9 Jul
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 39Every 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 1 July 2023 to 7 July 2023 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 July 2023 to 7 July 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,337 hectares (13.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mayama (1,346 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 49 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, 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.
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: 24. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 1,288 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 13 of 24, 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 1.6 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 2 July 2023 → 1 July 2023.

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 2 July 2023 to 7 July 2023. 39 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.