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Djema fire, 28 November 2016 Djema

Out · last detection 19 Dec 2016, 11:32 UTC

The fire started on 28 November 2016 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,546 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 87th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 40 in Central African Republic in 2016, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Djema · 2025Djema · 2020Djema · 2025

Burnt area
14,546ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
28 Nov 2016 – 19 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
28 Nov
2016
Heat detections
520
in a single hotspot: 140 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
179MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Nov19 Dec
19 Dec 2016

How it evolved, day by day

28 Nov 2016 · 56 MW · 6 29 Nov 2016 · 3 MW · 1 30 Nov 2016 · 35 MW · 4 2 Dec 2016 · 154 MW · 9 3 Dec 2016 · 5 MW · 2 4 Dec 2016 · 162 MW · 22 5 Dec 2016 · 780 MW · 72 6 Dec 2016 · 43 MW · 12 7 Dec 2016 · 406 MW · 43 8 Dec 2016 · 638 MW · 60 9 Dec 2016 · 373 MW · 138 10 Dec 2016 · 346 MW · 56 11 Dec 2016 · 35 MW · 6 12 Dec 2016 · 190 MW · 10 13 Dec 2016 · 7 MW · 3 15 Dec 2016 · 5 MW · 5 16 Dec 2016 · 103 MW · 23 17 Dec 2016 · 147 MW · 19 18 Dec 2016 · 28 MW · 9 19 Dec 2016 · 67 MW · 20
28 Nov 2 Dec 5 Dec 8 Dec 11 Dec 15 Dec 18 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
44km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 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?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9.2% of the area of London (145 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
    14,670 ha reached on 28 Nov
    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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 Nov 35.2 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Nov 35.5 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Nov 35.8 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Dec 33.8 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Dec 33.9 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Dec 34.6 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Dec 34.8 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Dec 35.2 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Dec 35.7 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Dec 34.6 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Dec 34.9 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Dec 34.4 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Dec 34.8 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Dec 34.3 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Dec 34.7 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Dec 34.9 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Dec 34.2 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Dec 32.3 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Dec 33.2 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Dec 33.4 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Dec 33.4 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Dec 33.6 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Dec after 34.2 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Dec after 35.0 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Dec after 35.0 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Dec after 36.0 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Dec after 36.3 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Dec after 35.1 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Dec after 34.2 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
27 Dec after 33.5 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Dec after 33.8 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Dec after 35.4 °C 14 % 34 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 · 21 Nov 2016
After · 26 Dec 2016

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 · 520Every 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 November 2016 to 19 December 2016 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 December 2016 to 12 December 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,546 hectares (145.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Djema (14,670 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 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 5 December 2016 to 12 December 2016. 520 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.