How long did the Guiffa fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 February 2026 to 6 March 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 February 2026 to 6 March 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,114 hectares (51.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Guiffa (5,147 ha, 3.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very high.

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 · 2026-02-19 → 2026-03-06

Guiffa fire, February 2026 Guiffa

Out · last detection 6 Mar 2026, 12:03 UTC

The fire started on 19 February 2026 in Guiffa, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,114 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Kémo since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 140 in Central African Republic in 2026, of 148.

Burnt area: 5,114ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 19 Feb 2026 – 6 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 19 Feb; 2026
Heat detections: 125; in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 6 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Feb6 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

19212226272812346

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

34km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 15 Mar.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,281 ha in 2016, 536 ha in 2017, 2,429 ha in 2019, 418 ha in 2020, 1,159 ha in 2022, 1,884 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,687 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Guiffa where it started

5,147 ha reached on 19 Feb

3.4 %

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)
19 Feb	33.7 °C	30 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
20 Feb	35.2 °C	28 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
21 Feb	37.3 °C	25 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
22 Feb	34.2 °C	34 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
23 Feb	32.8 °C	45 %	30 km/h	2.8 mm	Low 7
24 Feb	34.4 °C	36 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
25 Feb	34.7 °C	26 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
26 Feb	35.8 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 Feb	36.5 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
28 Feb	34.9 °C	13 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Mar	34.9 °C	11 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
2 Mar	36.1 °C	17 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
3 Mar	36.2 °C	26 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
4 Mar	35.3 °C	29 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
5 Mar	35.8 °C	25 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
6 Mar	36.0 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
7 Mar after	36.8 °C	31 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Mar after	38.2 °C	20 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
9 Mar after	38.9 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Mar after	35.4 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Mar after	35.4 °C	33 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
12 Mar after	35.9 °C	35 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
13 Mar after	36.2 °C	38 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Mar after	35.8 °C	44 %	34 km/h	0.9 mm	High 25
15 Mar after	30.5 °C	57 %	41 km/h	3.2 mm	Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Feb 2026

After · 13 Mar 2026

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 1 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 133 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak133 µg/m³

Days over the guideline21 days

PM10276 µg/m³

Optical depth0.92

WHO 15

171819202122232425262728123456789

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 · 125Every 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 Guiffa fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 February 2026 to 6 March 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 February 2026 to 6 March 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,114 hectares (51.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Guiffa (5,147 ha, 3.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very high.
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 ↗

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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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