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Djema fire, 1 December 2017 Djema

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2018, 12:34 UTC

The fire started on 1 December 2017 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 62,332 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 2 in Central African Republic in 2017, of 100.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Djema · 2016Djema · 2016Djema · 2016Djema · 2016

Burnt area
62,332ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
39days
1 Dec 2017 – 8 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
1 Dec
2017
Heat detections
2,716
in a single hotspot: 191 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
481MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Dec8 Jan
9 Jan 2018

How it evolved, day by day

1 Dec 2017 · 139 MW · 23 2 Dec 2017 · 144 MW · 33 3 Dec 2017 · 45 MW · 7 4 Dec 2017 · 93 MW · 18 5 Dec 2017 · 161 MW · 25 6 Dec 2017 · 100 MW · 15 7 Dec 2017 · 387 MW · 42 8 Dec 2017 · 202 MW · 59 9 Dec 2017 · 23 MW · 22 10 Dec 2017 · 1,524 MW · 149 11 Dec 2017 · 4,446 MW · 319 12 Dec 2017 · 770 MW · 157 13 Dec 2017 · 1,029 MW · 171 14 Dec 2017 · 374 MW · 67 15 Dec 2017 · 668 MW · 117 16 Dec 2017 · 923 MW · 137 17 Dec 2017 · 442 MW · 91 18 Dec 2017 · 150 MW · 93 19 Dec 2017 · 382 MW · 66 20 Dec 2017 · 276 MW · 45 21 Dec 2017 · 188 MW · 32 22 Dec 2017 · 924 MW · 79 23 Dec 2017 · 505 MW · 45 24 Dec 2017 · 64 MW · 23 25 Dec 2017 · 2 MW · 2 26 Dec 2017 · 172 MW · 20 27 Dec 2017 · 366 MW · 93 28 Dec 2017 · 676 MW · 166 29 Dec 2017 · 1,025 MW · 132 30 Dec 2017 · 886 MW · 102 31 Dec 2017 · 813 MW · 128 1 Jan 2018 · 612 MW · 75 2 Jan 2018 · 293 MW · 46 3 Jan 2018 · 152 MW · 71 4 Jan 2018 · 19 MW · 8 5 Jan 2018 · 103 MW · 10 6 Jan 2018 · 99 MW · 11 7 Jan 2018 · 20 MW · 9 8 Jan 2018 · 3 MW · 4 9 Jan 2018 · 26 MW · 4
1 Dec 7 Dec 11 Dec 13 Dec 19 Dec 25 Dec 31 Dec 6 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
46km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 31,157 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 39% of the area of London (623 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
    62,756 ha reached on 1 Dec
    1.7 %

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)
1 Dec 34.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Dec 33.3 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
3 Dec 34.6 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Dec 35.1 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Dec 35.5 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Dec 35.6 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Dec 34.7 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Dec 34.0 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Dec 34.3 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Dec 35.6 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Dec 35.2 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Dec 36.2 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Dec 35.9 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Dec 35.8 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Dec 35.3 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Dec 35.0 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Dec 35.0 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Dec 35.7 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Dec 36.3 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Dec 36.3 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Dec 36.9 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Dec 37.1 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Dec 37.6 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Dec 36.5 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Dec 35.3 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Dec 34.8 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Dec 35.5 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Dec 37.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Dec 37.2 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec 36.9 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Dec 34.3 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Jan 32.1 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Jan 31.6 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Jan 32.3 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Jan 32.5 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Jan 32.1 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Jan 33.0 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Jan 33.5 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Jan 33.7 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Jan after 33.2 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Jan after 34.3 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Jan after 35.3 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Jan after 36.0 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Jan after 36.9 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Jan after 36.9 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Jan after 34.7 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Jan after 34.6 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Jan after 34.8 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Jan after 35.3 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Nov 2017
After · 15 Jan 2018

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 · 2,716Every 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 1 December 2017 to 8 January 2018 (39 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 December 2017 to 2 January 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 62,332 hectares (623.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Djema (62,756 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 December 2017 to 2 January 2018. 2,716 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.