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CG · Republic of the Congo · –

Okoyo fire, June 2023 Okoyo

Out · last detection 28 Jun 2023, 01:08 UTC

The fire started on 27 June 2023 in Okoyo, Republic of the Congo, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,051 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Cuvette-Ouest since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 33 in Republic of the Congo in 2023, of 40.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,051ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
27 Jun 2023 – 28 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Jun
2023
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
41MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jun28 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

28 Jun 2023 · 41 MW · 10

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
26km/h · peak gust
65%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 1 Jul.

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 0.7% of the area of London (11 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
    1,058 ha reached on 28 Jun
    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)
27 Jun 28.7 °C 65 % 26 km/h 0.6 mm Very low 4
28 Jun 27.2 °C 65 % 26 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 4
29 Jun after 29.0 °C 61 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm Low 5
30 Jun after 26.3 °C 71 % 26 km/h 0.9 mm Very low 3
1 Jul after 29.0 °C 66 % 22 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 1

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 3.6, a minimum humidity of 65% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 20.

FWI at the start 3.6
Minimum humidity 65 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Plateaux fire, August 2023
1,263 ha 3 days FWI 3.8 Min. humidity 64 % 35 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.5 mm on 24 Aug.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
1,532 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 20 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,051 ha against a median of 1,532 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 3 days.

In 6 of 20, 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 1.9 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

4.0 mmfirst rain
1 Jul3 days after it ended
26km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Jun, and on 1 Jul 4.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 20, with a median of 1.9 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 · 20 Jun 2023
After · 5 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 25 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1058 µg/m³
Optical depth1.12
25 Jun27 Jun29 Jun1 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 · 10Every 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 27 June 2023 and 28 June 2023: 2 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 1,051 hectares (10.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Okoyo (1,058 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 65 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very low.
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: 20. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 1,532 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 6 of 20, 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 1.9 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. 10 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.