How long did the Djema fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 January 2016 to 24 January 2016 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 January 2016 to 21 January 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,117 hectares (121.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Djema (12,187 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.

CF · Central African Republic · 2016-01-11 → 2016-01-24

Djema fire, 11 January 2016 Djema

Out · last detection 25 Jan 2016, 23:38 UTC

The fire started on 11 January 2016 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,117 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 102th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 53 in Central African Republic in 2016, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Djema · 2018 Djema · 2024 Djema · 2019 Djema · 2022

Burnt area: 12,117ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 11 Jan 2016 – 24 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 11 Jan; 2016
Heat detections: 401; in a single hotspot: 87 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 186MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jan24 Jan

Play back 25 Jan 2016

How it evolved, day by day

11 Jan 13 Jan 14 Jan 17 Jan 20 Jan 23 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

41km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days 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?

It burned the equivalent of 7.7% of the area of London (121 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

Djema where it started

12,187 ha reached on 11 Jan

0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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	Danger (FWI)
11 Jan	35.7 °C	10 %	28 km/h	Very high 47
12 Jan	36.0 °C	10 %	25 km/h	Very high 48
13 Jan	35.9 °C	12 %	32 km/h	Very high 49
14 Jan	35.8 °C	11 %	38 km/h	Extreme 53
15 Jan	35.0 °C	14 %	33 km/h	Extreme 53
16 Jan	35.5 °C	13 %	37 km/h	Extreme 53
17 Jan	37.3 °C	13 %	30 km/h	Very high 48
18 Jan	36.5 °C	13 %	19 km/h	Very high 47
19 Jan	35.8 °C	11 %	37 km/h	Extreme 54
20 Jan	35.3 °C	10 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
21 Jan	36.3 °C	8 %	32 km/h	Extreme 54
22 Jan	37.5 °C	8 %	28 km/h	Extreme 53
23 Jan	35.9 °C	9 %	22 km/h	Extreme 53
24 Jan	35.6 °C	9 %	24 km/h	Extreme 55
25 Jan after	33.8 °C	10 %	36 km/h	Extreme 57
26 Jan after	33.2 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Extreme 60
27 Jan after	31.8 °C	10 %	39 km/h	Extreme 59
28 Jan after	32.4 °C	9 %	40 km/h	Extreme 59
29 Jan after	31.3 °C	10 %	44 km/h	Extreme 61
30 Jan after	32.2 °C	10 %	37 km/h	Extreme 57
31 Jan after	33.6 °C	11 %	39 km/h	Extreme 58
1 Feb after	35.0 °C	11 %	40 km/h	Extreme 59
2 Feb after	34.5 °C	11 %	41 km/h	Extreme 60
3 Feb after	35.5 °C	11 %	40 km/h	Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Jan 2016

After · 31 Jan 2016

Before After

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 · 401Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Central African Republic ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Djema fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 January 2016 to 24 January 2016 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 January 2016 to 21 January 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,117 hectares (121.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Djema (12,187 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 11 January 2016 to 21 January 2016. 401 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.

Where it burned