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CG · Republic of the Congo · –

Okoyo fire, 1 August 2020 Okoyo

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2020, 00:29 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2020 in Okoyo, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,056 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Cuvette-Ouest since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 9 in Republic of the Congo in 2020, of 75.

Compare with…
Burnt area
2,056ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
1 Aug 2020 – 7 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Aug
2020
Heat detections
61
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
59MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug7 Aug
8 Aug 2020

How it evolved, day by day

1 Aug 2020 · 265 MW · 10 3 Aug 2020 · 36 MW · 12 4 Aug 2020 · 20 MW · 5 5 Aug 2020 · 40 MW · 13 6 Aug 2020 · 26 MW · 10 7 Aug 2020 · 28 MW · 10 8 Aug 2020 · 0 MW · 1
1 Aug 4 Aug 6 Aug 8 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

29°high
37km/h · peak gust
56%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 16 Aug.

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 1.3% of the area of London (21 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. Okoyo where it started
    2,071 ha
    0.4 %

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 Aug 25.8 °C 63 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
2 Aug 27.4 °C 64 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Aug 26.1 °C 69 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
4 Aug 26.7 °C 69 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 17
5 Aug 27.6 °C 64 % 33 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 14
6 Aug 28.3 °C 58 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
7 Aug 28.7 °C 56 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
8 Aug after 30.6 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Aug after 27.2 °C 60 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
10 Aug after 29.4 °C 51 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
11 Aug after 29.2 °C 56 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
12 Aug after 29.1 °C 62 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 18
13 Aug after 28.9 °C 60 % 28 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
14 Aug after 27.9 °C 64 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 12
15 Aug after 27.7 °C 63 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 15
16 Aug after 29.6 °C 59 % 26 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 17

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 15.5, a minimum humidity of 63% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 22.

FWI at the start 15.5
Minimum humidity 63 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Plateaux fire, July 2024
3,112 ha 11 days FWI 14.1 Min. humidity 61 % 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
1,434 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 6 of 22 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,056 ha against a median of 1,434 ha) and lasted 7 days, against 6 days.

In 16 of 22, 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

2.4 mmfirst rain
16 Aug9 days after it ended
37km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 7 Aug, and on 16 Aug 2.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 6 of 22, 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 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 · 25 Jul 2020
After · 14 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 · 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Republic of the Congo

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Okoyo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2020 and 7 August 2020: 7 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 2,056 hectares (20.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Okoyo (2,071 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 56 % and gusts hit 37 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.
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: 22. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 1,434 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 16 of 22, 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 · 5 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Name: Kakamoéka → Okoyo.
  2. Last day with fire: 9 August 2020 → 7 August 2020.
  3. Start date: 31 July 2020 → 1 August 2020.
  4. Last day with fire: 7 August 2020 → 9 August 2020.
  5. Start date: 1 August 2020 → 31 July 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 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.

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.