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Dékoa fire, January 2023 Dékoa

Out · last detection 18 Feb 2023, 12:48 UTC

The fire started on 27 January 2023 in Dékoa, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,081 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Kémo since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 52 in Central African Republic in 2023, of 53.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Dékoa · 2020Dékoa · 2016Dékoa · 2020Ndenga · 2026

Burnt area
5,081ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
27 Jan 2023 – 18 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
27 Jan
2023
Heat detections
387
in a single hotspot: 181 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
255MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jan18 Feb
18 Feb 2023

How it evolved, day by day

29 Jan 2023 · 7 MW · 1 30 Jan 2023 · 26 MW · 5 31 Jan 2023 · 19 MW · 3 1 Feb 2023 · 70 MW · 5 2 Feb 2023 · 8 MW · 2 3 Feb 2023 · 35 MW · 4 4 Feb 2023 · 378 MW · 37 5 Feb 2023 · 718 MW · 55 6 Feb 2023 · 372 MW · 29 7 Feb 2023 · 596 MW · 33 8 Feb 2023 · 121 MW · 14 9 Feb 2023 · 111 MW · 16 10 Feb 2023 · 222 MW · 18 11 Feb 2023 · 547 MW · 21 12 Feb 2023 · 801 MW · 28 13 Feb 2023 · 135 MW · 33 14 Feb 2023 · 26 MW · 6 15 Feb 2023 · 643 MW · 31 16 Feb 2023 · 458 MW · 34 17 Feb 2023 · 25 MW · 5 18 Feb 2023 · 38 MW · 7
29 Jan 1 Feb 4 Feb 7 Feb 10 Feb 12 Feb 13 Feb 16 Feb

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high
39km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,294 ha in 2016, 2,259 ha in 2017, 619 ha in 2019, 3,054 ha in 2020, 945 ha in 2021, 1,807 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,663 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 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. Dékoa where it started
    5,115 ha reached on 29 Jan
    7.9 %

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 Jan 37.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jan 35.9 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jan 35.7 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Jan 36.4 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Jan 36.8 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Feb 37.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Feb 35.8 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Feb 36.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Feb 37.9 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Feb 38.1 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Feb 38.1 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Feb 37.1 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Feb 37.1 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Feb 37.2 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Feb 37.7 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Feb 38.3 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Feb 38.6 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Feb 37.5 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Feb 37.0 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Feb 36.3 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Feb 34.9 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Feb 34.6 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Feb 36.2 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Feb after 37.4 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Feb after 37.5 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Feb after 38.5 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Feb after 39.2 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Feb after 36.7 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Feb after 36.9 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Feb after 35.7 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Feb after 37.6 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Feb after 37.5 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Feb after 36.6 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jan 2023
After · 25 Feb 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 8 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 264 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 149: 9.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak264 µg/m³
Days over the guideline28 days
PM10378 µg/m³
Optical depth1.50
25262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021
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 · 387Every 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 Central African Republic ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dékoa fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 January 2023 to 18 February 2023 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 February 2023 to 11 February 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,081 hectares (50.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dékoa (5,115 ha, 7.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Central African Republic (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 2 February 2023 to 11 February 2023. 387 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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.