Djema fire, 30 January 2026 Djema, Rafaï
The fire started on 30 January 2026 in Djema, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,400 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 63th largest in Haut-Mbomou since 2016 (of 298 with a page). Number 20 in Central African Republic in 2026, of 147.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Djema · 2016Djema · 2016Djema · 2020Djema · 2021
- Burnt area
- 18,400ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 30 Jan 2026 – 11 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 30 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 436
- in a single hotspot: 87 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 290MW
- 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 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,014 ha in 2016, 4,919 ha in 2017, 6,928 ha in 2018, 1,043 ha in 2019, 10,691 ha in 2020, 8,944 ha in 2021, 1,167 ha in 2022, 3,455 ha in 2023, 2,807 ha in 2024, 127 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,366 ha that had burned before.
- 8,727 ha Djema fire, December 2016 87,931 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,094 ha Djema fire, January 2016 14,874 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,031 ha Djema fire, January 2020 11,673 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,613 ha Djema fire, January 2021 7,264 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 311 ha Djema fire, December 2018 6,886 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4 ha Djema fire, February 2021 6,324 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 started18,376 ha reached on 30 Jan0.5 %
-
123 ha reached on 2 Feb0.0 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Jan | 36.9 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 31 Jan | 36.4 °C | 14 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 1 Feb | 34.0 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Feb | 35.5 °C | 17 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Feb | 37.6 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 4 Feb | 38.0 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 5 Feb | 38.1 °C | 12 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 6 Feb | 34.3 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Feb | 36.4 °C | 14 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Feb | 36.0 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Feb | 34.2 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Feb | 34.0 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Feb | 34.8 °C | 21 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Feb after | 35.7 °C | 20 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 20 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Feb after | 35.9 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 15 Feb after | 34.9 °C | 21 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Feb after | 36.4 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Feb after | 36.6 °C | 23 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Feb after | 33.2 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Feb after | 34.7 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Feb after | 36.0 °C | 18 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Feb after | 36.5 °C | 15 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 30 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 436Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Djema fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 January 2026 to 11 February 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 February 2026 to 11 February 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,400 hectares (184.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Djema (18,376 ha, 0.5 %); Rafaï (123 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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
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.
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 2 February 2026 to 11 February 2026. 436 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.