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Djema fire, 17 December 2019 Djema

Out · last detection 4 Jan 2020, 23:36 UTC

The fire started on 17 December 2019 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,963 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 226th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 47 in Central African Republic in 2019, of 64.

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Suggestions: Djema · 2025Djema · 2024Djema · 2026Djema · 2026

Burnt area
5,963ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
17 Dec 2019 – 4 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
17 Dec
2019
Heat detections
160
in a single hotspot: 96 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
50MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Dec4 Jan
4 Jan 2020

How it evolved, day by day

17 Dec 2019 · 90 MW · 7 18 Dec 2019 · 4 MW · 2 19 Dec 2019 · 0 MW · 1 20 Dec 2019 · 4 MW · 1 21 Dec 2019 · 4 MW · 2 22 Dec 2019 · 36 MW · 5 23 Dec 2019 · 69 MW · 10 24 Dec 2019 · 214 MW · 38 25 Dec 2019 · 16 MW · 10 26 Dec 2019 · 110 MW · 17 27 Dec 2019 · 90 MW · 21 28 Dec 2019 · 159 MW · 36 29 Dec 2019 · 2 MW · 3 30 Dec 2019 · 1 MW · 1 31 Dec 2019 · 4 MW · 5 4 Jan 2020 · 1 MW · 1
17 Dec 20 Dec 23 Dec 24 Dec 26 Dec 29 Dec 4 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

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

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,885 ha in 2016, 864 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,955 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 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
    6,009 ha reached on 17 Dec
    0.2 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
17 Dec 32.8 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Dec 32.6 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Dec 32.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Dec 33.5 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Dec 34.1 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Dec 34.1 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Dec 34.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Dec 35.0 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Dec 34.8 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Dec 32.9 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Dec 33.2 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Dec 32.5 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Dec 33.9 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec 34.8 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Dec 34.7 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Jan 35.0 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Jan 36.0 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Jan 34.8 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Jan 32.8 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Jan after 31.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Jan after 32.9 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jan after 33.8 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Jan after 34.2 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Jan after 33.0 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Jan after 33.9 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jan after 32.5 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Jan after 31.1 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Jan after 32.6 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Jan after 34.4 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Dec 2019
After · 11 Jan 2020

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 · 160Every 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 17 December 2019 to 4 January 2020 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 December 2019 to 29 December 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,963 hectares (59.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Djema (6,009 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 22 December 2019 to 29 December 2019. 160 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 2020, 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.