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CG · Republic of the Congo · –

Mouyondzi fire, 24 August 2018 Mouyondzi

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2018, 12:19 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2018 in Mouyondzi, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,212 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in Bouenza since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 35 in Republic of the Congo in 2018, of 62.

Burnt area
1,212ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
24 Aug 2018 – 27 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Aug
2018
Heat detections
20
in a single hotspot: 81 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
192MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug27 Aug
27 Aug 2018

How it evolved, day by day

24 Aug 2018 · 565 MW · 14 25 Aug 2018 · 6 MW · 5 27 Aug 2018 · 5 MW · 1
24 Aug 25 Aug 27 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
24km/h · peak gust
46%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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 0.8% of the area of London (12 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. Mouyondzi where it started
    1,220 ha reached on 24 Aug
    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)

Started with 60 days without rain: 12 % of the area in Republic of the Congo

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
24 Aug 31.8 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
25 Aug 28.5 °C 59 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Aug 26.7 °C 70 % 18 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
27 Aug 32.2 °C 50 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Aug after 29.2 °C 59 % 30 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 18
29 Aug after 26.7 °C 64 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
30 Aug after 28.7 °C 56 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 16
31 Aug after 30.0 °C 56 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
1 Sept after 27.8 °C 58 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
2 Sept after 30.2 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 19
3 Sept after 31.6 °C 52 % 24 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 16
4 Sept after 28.3 °C 58 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 17
5 Sept after 32.1 °C 48 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
6 Sept after 29.0 °C 55 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 19.2, a minimum humidity of 46% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.

FWI at the start 19.2
Minimum humidity 46 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kindamba fire, August 2024
1,378 ha 5 days FWI 18.4 Min. humidity 46 % 39 km away, in 2024

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

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
1,507 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 8 of 17 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,212 ha against a median of 1,507 ha) and lasted 4 days, against 6 days.

In 9 of 17, 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 3.6 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
24km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 8 of 17, with a median of 3.6 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 · 17 Aug 2018
After · 3 Sept 2018

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 · 20Every 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 Mouyondzi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 August 2018 and 27 August 2018: 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 1,212 hectares (12.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mouyondzi (1,220 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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: 17. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 1,507 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 9 of 17, 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 3.6 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 20 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.