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CG · Republic of the Congo · –

Mouyondzi fire, 8 August 2020 Mouyondzi

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2020, 23:59 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2020 in Mouyondzi, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,507 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 24th largest in Bouenza since 2016 (of 94 with a page). Number 28 in Republic of the Congo in 2020, of 75.

Burnt area
1,507ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
8 Aug 2020 – 14 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Aug
2020
Heat detections
30
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
96MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug14 Aug
14 Aug 2020

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 2020 · 231 MW · 11 9 Aug 2020 · 106 MW · 13 12 Aug 2020 · 44 MW · 5 14 Aug 2020 · 2 MW · 1
8 Aug 9 Aug 12 Aug 14 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

31°high
31km/h · peak gust
49%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 94 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1% of the area of London (15 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
    1,517 ha reached on 8 Aug
    0.3 %

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)
8 Aug 30.9 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Aug 27.4 °C 60 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
10 Aug 28.5 °C 56 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
11 Aug 26.5 °C 65 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
12 Aug 28.0 °C 62 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
13 Aug 29.9 °C 53 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
14 Aug 28.9 °C 57 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
15 Aug after 27.1 °C 65 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 15
16 Aug after 30.2 °C 57 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
17 Aug after 29.4 °C 61 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
18 Aug after 29.8 °C 58 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
19 Aug after 28.6 °C 63 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
20 Aug after 28.1 °C 62 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
21 Aug after 28.7 °C 61 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
22 Aug after 27.1 °C 64 % 26 km/h 0.9 mm Low 10
23 Aug after 28.9 °C 61 % 26 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
24 Aug after 29.4 °C 60 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 17.5, a minimum humidity of 49% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.

FWI at the start 17.5
Minimum humidity 49 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mouyondzi fire, July 2024
1,114 ha 3 days FWI 17.5 Min. humidity 49 % 19 km away, in 2024

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

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
1,136 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 4 of 17 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,507 ha against a median of 1,136 ha) and lasted 7 days, against 5 days.

In 13 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 2.5 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
31km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 4 of 17, with a median of 2.5 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 · 1 Aug 2020
After · 21 Aug 2020

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 · 30Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 August 2020 to 14 August 2020 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2020 to 12 August 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,507 hectares (15.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mouyondzi (1,517 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 49 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, 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 5 days and their median area 1,136 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 13 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 2.5 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. Last day with fire: 12 August 2020 → 14 August 2020.

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.

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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 8 August 2020 to 12 August 2020. 30 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.