How long did the Djema fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 January 2020 to 6 February 2020 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 January 2020 to 30 January 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 46,225 hectares (462.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Djema (46,723 ha, 1.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 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 · 14 Jan 2020 – 6 Feb 2020

Djema fire, 14 January 2020 Djema

Q: How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?

Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 42. Their median duration was 15 days and their median area 7,472 ha; 33 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 1 of its 42 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

Out · last detection 6 Feb 2020, 23:17 UTC

The fire started on 14 January 2020 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 46,225 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 270 with a page). Number 10 in Central African Republic in 2020, of 101.

Use this data

Compare with…

Suggestions: Raga · 2020 Raga · 2020 Djema · 2016 Djema · 2019

Use this data

Fire page data · version 2026-10-24

matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel

When copying, the sentence is

Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.

Burned area

satellite only

46,225ha

Union of 3 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus)
Date: 14 Jan 2020 – 6 Feb 2020

+ cross-check

No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.

in my selection

Duration by satellite

satellite only

24days

14 Jan 2020 to 6 Feb 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date: last detection: 6 Feb 2020, 23:17 UTC

+ cross-check

Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

in my selection

Start

satellite only

14 Jan 2020

First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date: 14 Jan 2020

+ cross-check

No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.

in my selection

Hotspots

satellite only

2,011

VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 157 MW.

Source: NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
Date: 14 Jan 2020 – 6 Feb 2020

+ cross-check

There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.

in my selection

The worst day

satellite only

1,649MW

Total radiative power on 26 January 2020; hotspots that day: 170.

Source: NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
Date: 26 Jan 2020

+ cross-check

Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.

in my selection

Danger at the start

model

47.7FWI · very high

Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 29.

Source: WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
Date: 14 Jan 2020, local noon
Model: ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com

+ cross-check

This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings

in my selection

Weather during the fire

model

38.1°C · 11% RH

High of 38.1 °C and minimum humidity of 11% on 16 January 2020; gusts of 44 km/h on 17 January 2020.

Source: weather model at the fire’s grid cell
Date: 14 Jan 2020 – 6 Feb 2020
Model: ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com

+ cross-check

These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.

in my selection

Versioned permanent link

https://worldfires.org/en/fire/djema-2020-01-11?v=2026-10-24

A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.

Citation

A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives

In another language

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CSV for this fire djema-2020-01-11.csv · daily, no individual hotspots

fecha	focos_viirs	frp_mw	tmax_c	tmin_c	hr_min_pct	viento_max_kmh	racha_max_kmh	fwi	clase_fwi	dentro_del_incendio
2020-01-14	26	202	35.9	21	11	13.4	34.2	47.7	muy_alto	1
2020-01-15	37	977	37.7	22.6	11	14	34.9	49.3	muy_alto	1
2020-01-16	68	307	38.1	23.6	11	16.7	40	53	extremo	1
2020-01-17	37	605	38.1	24	10	18	43.9	55.9	extremo	1
2020-01-18	73	828	35.4	22.6	13	18.2	35.6	56.7	extremo	1
2020-01-19	314	1,602	34.4	22.7	14	15	33.8	52.4	extremo	1
2020-01-20	114	435	34.4	21.9	13	17	38.9	55.3	extremo	1
2020-01-21	147	722	33.9	20.5	12	17.7	40	56.7	extremo	1
2020-01-22	99	637	33.1	19.9	10	17.5	40	56.8	extremo	1
2020-01-23	79	337	32.2	18.9	10	18.2	41.4	58.1	extremo	1
2020-01-24	122	774	32.2	17.7	11	18.1	40.7	58.2	extremo	1
2020-01-25	245	621	32.9	18.5	10	17.2	40	57.4	extremo	1
2020-01-26	170	1,649	33.5	19.1	12	16.8	38.9	56.9	extremo	1
2020-01-27	109	689	35.1	20.5	12	15.5	36.4	55.6	extremo	1
2020-01-28	69	1,233	36.6	21.2	11	14.2	34.2	54.4	extremo	1
2020-01-29	122	743	36	21.5	10	14.6	32.4	55.2	extremo	1
2020-01-30	81	684	36	21.3	10	14.8	35.6	55.8	extremo	1
2020-01-31	3	18	34.8	20.2	10	12.3	23.4	53.1	extremo	1
2020-02-01	0	0	35.2	21.2	10	11.3	26.3	52.2	extremo	1
2020-02-02	6	84	35.9	21.2	12	13.3	33.8	55	extremo	1
2020-02-03	17	146	36.8	23.1	11	14.1	32.8	56.3	extremo	1
2020-02-04	71	755	36.5	22.8	10	14.2	32.4	56.8	extremo	1
2020-02-05	1	1	34.1	22.4	22	10.7	28.1	44.6	muy_alto	1
2020-02-06	1	2	35.1	24.4	23	10.2	26.6	42.6	muy_alto	1
2020-02-07	0	0	37.9	25.7	14	15.6	39.2	51.5	extremo	0
2020-02-08	0	0	38.1	25.7	11	18	45.4	57.7	extremo	0
2020-02-09	0	0	36.5	24.6	10	21.1	49.3	62.2	extremo	0
2020-02-10	0	0	36.3	23.6	10	20.3	45	61.4	extremo	0
2020-02-11	0	0	35	22.3	11	18.6	41.8	59.4	extremo	0
2020-02-12	0	0	34.1	20.1	10	17.8	40.3	58.7	extremo	0
2020-02-13	0	0	35.3	21.2	10	16.2	37.8	56.9	extremo	0
2020-02-14	0	0	37.1	22.4	10	14.4	36.4	54.9	extremo	0
2020-02-15	0	0	37.7	23.6	11	12.9	33.1	53.3	extremo	0
2020-02-16	0	0	37.7	26.2	17	16.6	43.2	57.1	extremo	0

It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.

Live widget for your story

It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.

Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology

Burnt area: 46,225ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 24days; 14 Jan 2020 – 6 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 14 Jan; 2020
Heat detections: 2,011; in a single hotspot: 157 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 611MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jan6 Feb

Play back 6 Feb 2020

How it evolved, day by day

14 Jan 19 Jan 26 Jan 4 Feb

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

44km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 27,884 ha in 2016, 11,603 ha in 2017, 9,582 ha in 2018, 23,399 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 41,333 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 29% of the area of London (462 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

46,723 ha reached on 14 Jan

1.3 %

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)

Started with Very dry air: 42 % of the area in Central African Republic

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Danger (FWI)
14 Jan	35.9 °C	11 %	34 km/h	Very high 48
15 Jan	37.7 °C	11 %	35 km/h	Very high 49
16 Jan	38.1 °C	11 %	40 km/h	Extreme 53
17 Jan	38.1 °C	10 %	44 km/h	Extreme 56
18 Jan	35.4 °C	13 %	36 km/h	Extreme 57
19 Jan	34.4 °C	14 %	34 km/h	Extreme 52
20 Jan	34.4 °C	13 %	39 km/h	Extreme 55
21 Jan	33.9 °C	12 %	40 km/h	Extreme 57
22 Jan	33.1 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Extreme 57
23 Jan	32.2 °C	10 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
24 Jan	32.2 °C	11 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
25 Jan	32.9 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Extreme 57
26 Jan	33.5 °C	12 %	39 km/h	Extreme 57
27 Jan	35.1 °C	12 %	36 km/h	Extreme 56
28 Jan	36.6 °C	11 %	34 km/h	Extreme 54
29 Jan	36.0 °C	10 %	32 km/h	Extreme 55
30 Jan	36.0 °C	10 %	36 km/h	Extreme 56
31 Jan	34.8 °C	10 %	23 km/h	Extreme 53
1 Feb	35.2 °C	10 %	26 km/h	Extreme 52
2 Feb	35.9 °C	12 %	34 km/h	Extreme 55
3 Feb	36.8 °C	11 %	33 km/h	Extreme 56
4 Feb	36.5 °C	10 %	32 km/h	Extreme 57
5 Feb	34.1 °C	22 %	28 km/h	Very high 45
6 Feb	35.1 °C	23 %	27 km/h	Very high 43
7 Feb after	37.9 °C	14 %	39 km/h	Extreme 52
8 Feb after	38.1 °C	11 %	45 km/h	Extreme 58
9 Feb after	36.5 °C	10 %	49 km/h	Extreme 62
10 Feb after	36.3 °C	10 %	45 km/h	Extreme 61
11 Feb after	35.0 °C	11 %	42 km/h	Extreme 59
12 Feb after	34.1 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Extreme 59
13 Feb after	35.3 °C	10 %	38 km/h	Extreme 57
14 Feb after	37.1 °C	10 %	36 km/h	Extreme 55
15 Feb after	37.7 °C	11 %	33 km/h	Extreme 53
16 Feb after	37.7 °C	17 %	43 km/h	Extreme 57

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 47.7, a minimum humidity of 11% and 29 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 42.

FWI at the start 47.7

Minimum humidity 11 %

Days without rain 29

this fire chosen twins rest of the area

How alike they must beTwins: 42

Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Same scale

Raga fire, December 2020

7,236 ha 13 days FWI 47.1 Min. humidity 11 % 199 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

15 days
median duration: 7,472 ha
median area: 33 %
went past 10,000 ha: —
rain at the end (median; 0 of 42 had it)

It was 6.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 24 days, against 15 days.

Only 1 of its 42 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain

—no rain in ten days

44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 6 Feb, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 42 twins had rain when they ended.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Jan 2020

After · 13 Feb 2020

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 · 2,011Every 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 14 January 2020 to 6 February 2020 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 January 2020 to 30 January 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 46,225 hectares (462.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Djema (46,723 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?: Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 42. Their median duration was 15 days and their median area 7,472 ha; 33 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 1 of its 42 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

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 ↗

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 With cross-checks and a citable version

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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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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 January 2020 to 30 January 2020. 2,011 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.

Use this data

Burned area

Duration by satellite

Start

Hotspots

The worst day

Danger at the start

Weather during the fire

What was saved on 24 October 2026

Versioned permanent link

Citation

A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives

CSV for this fire djema-2020-01-11.csv · daily, no individual hotspots

Live widget for your story

Where it burned

How it evolved, day by day

The weather it burned in

This area had burned before

How big is it?

What happened to each town

People and buildings inside the perimeter

The weather day by day

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

Outlines of the closest twins

What happened to them

How it ended

How a twin is chosen

Before and after, from space

Other fires nearby

Frequently asked questions

Where to verify it

Does something look wrong on this page?

Where this data comes from