How long did the Djema fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 January 2024 to 4 February 2024 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 January 2024 to 30 January 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,870 hectares (188.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Djema (19,021 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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 · 2024-01-21 → 2024-02-04

Djema fire, 21 January 2024 Djema

Out · last detection 4 Feb 2024, 11:25 UTC

The fire started on 21 January 2024 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,870 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 8 in Central African Republic in 2024, of 87.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Djema · 2023 Djema · 2020 Djema · 2016 Djema · 2018

Burnt area: 18,870ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 21 Jan 2024 – 4 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 21 Jan; 2024
Heat detections: 756; in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start: 60; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 402MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jan4 Feb

Play back 4 Feb 2024

How it evolved, day by day

21 Jan 24 Jan 27 Jan 29 Jan 30 Jan 2 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

37°high

44km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

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: 9,023 ha in 2016, 9,376 ha in 2017, 9,264 ha in 2018, 5,765 ha in 2019, 11,368 ha in 2020, 2,517 ha in 2021, 3,596 ha in 2022, 6,797 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,583 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 12% of the area of London (189 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

19,021 ha reached on 21 Jan

0.5 %

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)
21 Jan	34.6 °C	7 %	38 km/h	Extreme 60
22 Jan	36.2 °C	8 %	29 km/h	Extreme 55
23 Jan	36.4 °C	9 %	26 km/h	Extreme 55
24 Jan	36.9 °C	10 %	36 km/h	Extreme 59
25 Jan	36.2 °C	12 %	38 km/h	Extreme 60
26 Jan	33.5 °C	12 %	44 km/h	Extreme 62
27 Jan	33.6 °C	11 %	41 km/h	Extreme 60
28 Jan	34.0 °C	9 %	40 km/h	Extreme 60
29 Jan	35.1 °C	9 %	36 km/h	Extreme 57
30 Jan	35.8 °C	11 %	37 km/h	Extreme 59
31 Jan	35.0 °C	10 %	41 km/h	Extreme 62
1 Feb	33.8 °C	11 %	43 km/h	Extreme 62
2 Feb	33.5 °C	12 %	41 km/h	Extreme 61
3 Feb	34.5 °C	9 %	36 km/h	Extreme 57
4 Feb	34.8 °C	10 %	38 km/h	Extreme 59
5 Feb after	34.0 °C	11 %	42 km/h	Extreme 62
6 Feb after	33.0 °C	11 %	44 km/h	Extreme 63
7 Feb after	34.5 °C	10 %	41 km/h	Extreme 61
8 Feb after	36.7 °C	11 %	33 km/h	Extreme 56
9 Feb after	38.0 °C	12 %	35 km/h	Extreme 57
10 Feb after	38.3 °C	12 %	29 km/h	Extreme 54
11 Feb after	38.3 °C	11 %	40 km/h	Extreme 60
12 Feb after	38.9 °C	10 %	33 km/h	Extreme 55
13 Feb after	39.9 °C	9 %	28 km/h	Extreme 54
14 Feb after	39.8 °C	10 %	23 km/h	Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Jan 2024

After · 11 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 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³

Days over the guideline20 days

PM10154 µg/m³

Optical depth1.21

WHO 15

192021222324252627282930311234567

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 · 756Every 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 21 January 2024 to 4 February 2024 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 January 2024 to 30 January 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,870 hectares (188.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Djema (19,021 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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 22 January 2024 to 30 January 2024. 756 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