How long did the Djema fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 January 2024 to 2 February 2024 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 January 2024 to 26 January 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,811 hectares (78.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Djema (7,854 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 41 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.

CF · Central African Republic · 2024-01-11 → 2024-02-02

Djema fire, 11 January 2024 Djema

Out · last detection 30 Jan 2024, 11:19 UTC

The fire started on 11 January 2024 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,811 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 161th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 37 in Central African Republic in 2024, of 87.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Djema · 2018 Djema · 2019 Djema · 2020 Djema · 2016

Burnt area: 7,811ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 11 Jan 2024 – 2 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 11 Jan; 2024
Heat detections: 389; in a single hotspot: 208 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 196MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jan2 Feb

Play back 30 Jan 2024

How it evolved, day by day

11 Jan 14 Jan 17 Jan 20 Jan 21 Jan 23 Jan 26 Jan 30 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

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,927 ha in 2016, 1,972 ha in 2017, 5,915 ha in 2018, 5,550 ha in 2019, 2,613 ha in 2020, 2,895 ha in 2022, 3,155 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,483 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.9% of the area of London (78 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

7,854 ha reached on 11 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)
11 Jan	36.5 °C	13 %	35 km/h	Very high 47
12 Jan	36.0 °C	14 %	32 km/h	Very high 47
13 Jan	35.5 °C	13 %	20 km/h	Very high 42
14 Jan	36.9 °C	10 %	27 km/h	Very high 47
15 Jan	35.3 °C	11 %	39 km/h	Extreme 54
16 Jan	35.3 °C	11 %	39 km/h	Extreme 55
17 Jan	35.4 °C	10 %	34 km/h	Extreme 52
18 Jan	34.8 °C	9 %	30 km/h	Very high 49
19 Jan	34.8 °C	8 %	31 km/h	Extreme 51
20 Jan	35.1 °C	9 %	40 km/h	Extreme 57
21 Jan	35.4 °C	8 %	35 km/h	Extreme 54
22 Jan	36.6 °C	8 %	26 km/h	Very high 50
23 Jan	35.5 °C	11 %	19 km/h	Very high 49
24 Jan	37.2 °C	11 %	33 km/h	Extreme 53
25 Jan	36.7 °C	13 %	28 km/h	Extreme 52
26 Jan	35.0 °C	14 %	40 km/h	Extreme 57
27 Jan	34.6 °C	12 %	37 km/h	Extreme 56
28 Jan	34.3 °C	11 %	39 km/h	Extreme 57
29 Jan	33.9 °C	12 %	32 km/h	Extreme 54
30 Jan	36.2 °C	12 %	37 km/h	Extreme 55
31 Jan	35.3 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Extreme 59
1 Feb	34.2 °C	10 %	41 km/h	Extreme 60
2 Feb	33.4 °C	11 %	40 km/h	Extreme 60
3 Feb after	35.5 °C	11 %	36 km/h	Extreme 56
4 Feb after	35.9 °C	10 %	38 km/h	Extreme 59
5 Feb after	35.1 °C	11 %	40 km/h	Extreme 61
6 Feb after	34.5 °C	11 %	42 km/h	Extreme 63
7 Feb after	35.6 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Extreme 61
8 Feb after	37.0 °C	12 %	31 km/h	Extreme 55
9 Feb after	38.3 °C	13 %	34 km/h	Extreme 56
10 Feb after	38.4 °C	14 %	28 km/h	Extreme 50
11 Feb after	37.3 °C	17 %	27 km/h	Very high 49
12 Feb after	38.5 °C	11 %	33 km/h	Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Jan 2024

After · 9 Feb 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 94 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak94 µg/m³

Days over the guideline28 days

PM10134 µg/m³

Optical depth1.62

WHO 15

91011121314151617181920212223242526272829303112345

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 · 389Every 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 11 January 2024 to 2 February 2024 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 January 2024 to 26 January 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,811 hectares (78.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Djema (7,854 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 41 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

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

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What really happened?

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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 16 January 2024 to 26 January 2024. 389 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