Skip to content
worldfires
en
CF · Central African Republic · →

Djema fire, 28 December 2016 Djema, Obo

Out · last detection 12 Jan 2017, 10:41 UTC

The fire started on 28 December 2016 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,873 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 97th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 49 in Central African Republic in 2016, of 166.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Djema · 2020Djema · 2021Djema · 2018Tambura · 2018

Burnt area
12,873ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
28 Dec 2016 – 12 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
2
sub-prefectures
Started on
28 Dec
2016
Heat detections
378
in a single hotspot: 205 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
328MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Dec12 Jan
12 Jan 2017

How it evolved, day by day

30 Dec 2016 · 52 MW · 15 31 Dec 2016 · 18 MW · 1 2 Jan 2017 · 1 MW · 1 3 Jan 2017 · 239 MW · 17 4 Jan 2017 · 77 MW · 18 5 Jan 2017 · 1,236 MW · 117 6 Jan 2017 · 1,633 MW · 86 7 Jan 2017 · 358 MW · 45 8 Jan 2017 · 277 MW · 46 9 Jan 2017 · 224 MW · 17 10 Jan 2017 · 65 MW · 9 11 Jan 2017 · 1 MW · 2 12 Jan 2017 · 84 MW · 4
30 Dec 2 Jan 4 Jan 6 Jan 8 Jan 10 Jan 12 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
45km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,349 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.1% of the area of London (129 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. Djema where it started
    6,963 ha reached on 30 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Obo
    5,983 ha reached on 30 Dec
    1.1 %

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)
28 Dec 35.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Dec 36.0 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec 36.8 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Dec 37.2 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Jan 37.1 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Jan 36.1 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Jan 35.9 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Jan 36.5 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Jan 35.7 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Jan 37.2 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Jan 37.8 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Jan 37.6 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Jan 36.6 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Jan 37.6 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Jan 37.8 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Jan 37.2 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
13 Jan after 37.6 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Jan after 38.2 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Jan after 38.5 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Jan after 39.4 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Jan after 39.0 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
18 Jan after 38.9 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Jan after 39.4 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Jan after 39.5 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Jan after 38.8 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Jan after 39.3 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Dec 2016
After · 19 Jan 2017

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 · 378Every 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 Djema fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 December 2016 to 12 January 2017 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 January 2017 to 12 January 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,873 hectares (128.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Djema (6,963 ha, 0.2 %); Obo (5,983 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 30 December 2016 → 28 December 2016.

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 3 January 2017 to 12 January 2017. 378 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.