Djema fire, 20 January 2022 Djema
The fire started on 20 January 2022 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,397 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 131th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 44 in Central African Republic in 2022, of 98.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 9,397ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 20 Jan 2022 – 4 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 20 Jan
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 257
- in a single hotspot: 58 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 200MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,539 ha in 2016, 1,240 ha in 2017, 6,431 ha in 2018, 444 ha in 2019, 6,643 ha in 2020, 5,528 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,173 ha that had burned before.
- 7,490 ha Tambura fire, December 2016 422,275 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,089 ha Tambura fire, December 2020 280,755 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,354 ha Tambura fire, December 2019 61,665 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,540 ha Djema fire, December 2018 5,110 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13 ha Tambura fire, December 2017 12,288 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
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 started6,233 ha reached on 22 Jan0.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Jan | 33.0 °C | 13 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 Jan | 33.5 °C | 10 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 22 Jan | 34.9 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 Jan | 35.7 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 24 Jan | 36.7 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 25 Jan | 37.0 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 26 Jan | 36.5 °C | 13 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 27 Jan | 34.3 °C | 12 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 28 Jan | 33.5 °C | 11 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 29 Jan | 34.0 °C | 9 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 30 Jan | 34.8 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 31 Jan | 35.5 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 Feb | 34.1 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 2 Feb | 35.3 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 3 Feb | 37.5 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 4 Feb | 36.7 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 5 Feb after | 33.1 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 6 Feb after | 33.0 °C | 10 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 Feb after | 33.7 °C | 8 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 8 Feb after | 35.7 °C | 7 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 9 Feb after | 37.0 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 10 Feb after | 37.5 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 11 Feb after | 36.9 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 12 Feb after | 37.2 °C | 9 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 13 Feb after | 37.4 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 14 Feb after | 37.4 °C | 8 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 257Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 422,275 haTambura13 December 2016 · 34 days · 21 km away
- 199,786 haTambura7 January 2026 · 17 days · 29 km away
- 61,665 haTamburaDecember 2019 · 35 days · 29 km away
- 122,319 haTambura16 December 2024 · 48 days · 34 km away
- 67,391 haWau9 January 2024 · 18 days · 37 km away
- 64,093 haTambura14 December 2022 · 29 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Djema fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 January 2022 to 4 February 2022 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 January 2022 to 28 January 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,397 hectares (94.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Djema (6,233 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
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
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 20 January 2022 to 28 January 2022. 257 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.
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.