How long did the Djema fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 January 2024 to 22 January 2024 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 January 2024 to 22 January 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,640 hectares (76.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Djema (7,703 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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 · 2024-01-06 → 2024-01-22

Djema fire, 6 January 2024 Djema

Out · last detection 22 Jan 2024, 12:09 UTC

The fire started on 6 January 2024 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,640 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 164th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 42 in Central African Republic in 2024, of 91.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Djema · 2021 Djema · 2020 Djema · 2022 Yalinga · 2026

Burnt area: 7,640ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 6 Jan 2024 – 22 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 6 Jan; 2024
Heat detections: 266; in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start: 54; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 136MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jan22 Jan

Play back 22 Jan 2024

How it evolved, day by day

6 Jan 10 Jan 13 Jan 16 Jan 17 Jan 19 Jan 22 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

37°high

41km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,995 ha in 2016, 2,112 ha in 2017, 88 ha in 2018, 1,003 ha in 2019, 1,902 ha in 2020, 3,458 ha in 2021, 2,355 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,965 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.8% of the area of London (76 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

7,703 ha reached on 6 Jan

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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	Danger (FWI)
6 Jan	34.7 °C	9 %	35 km/h	Extreme 54
7 Jan	34.8 °C	9 %	34 km/h	Extreme 52
8 Jan	34.9 °C	10 %	30 km/h	Extreme 51
9 Jan	35.7 °C	12 %	24 km/h	Very high 49
10 Jan	36.6 °C	11 %	30 km/h	Extreme 51
11 Jan	36.1 °C	12 %	35 km/h	Extreme 55
12 Jan	35.7 °C	11 %	33 km/h	Extreme 54
13 Jan	36.0 °C	10 %	27 km/h	Extreme 54
14 Jan	36.5 °C	8 %	29 km/h	Extreme 55
15 Jan	34.5 °C	8 %	41 km/h	Extreme 61
16 Jan	34.9 °C	9 %	38 km/h	Extreme 60
17 Jan	34.4 °C	7 %	37 km/h	Extreme 59
18 Jan	34.3 °C	8 %	36 km/h	Extreme 58
19 Jan	35.0 °C	7 %	31 km/h	Extreme 58
20 Jan	34.2 °C	9 %	39 km/h	Extreme 61
21 Jan	34.8 °C	7 %	36 km/h	Extreme 59
22 Jan	36.1 °C	8 %	27 km/h	Extreme 55
23 Jan after	36.5 °C	8 %	24 km/h	Extreme 55
24 Jan after	37.1 °C	10 %	35 km/h	Extreme 58
25 Jan after	36.2 °C	12 %	36 km/h	Extreme 58
26 Jan after	33.8 °C	12 %	42 km/h	Extreme 61
27 Jan after	33.8 °C	11 %	39 km/h	Extreme 59
28 Jan after	34.3 °C	9 %	38 km/h	Extreme 59
29 Jan after	35.4 °C	8 %	35 km/h	Extreme 57
30 Jan after	35.9 °C	11 %	36 km/h	Extreme 58
31 Jan after	35.2 °C	10 %	38 km/h	Extreme 61
1 Feb after	34.1 °C	11 %	42 km/h	Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Dec 2023

After · 29 Jan 2024

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 22 January 2024 the air beside the fire reached 68 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak68 µg/m³

Days over the guideline22 days

PM1097 µg/m³

Optical depth0.99

WHO 15

45678910111213141516171819202122232425

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 266Every 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 6 January 2024 to 22 January 2024 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 January 2024 to 22 January 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,640 hectares (76.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Djema (7,703 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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

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

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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 January 2024 to 22 January 2024. 266 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 2025, 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.

Where it burned