How long did the Ndenga fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 February 2023 to 22 February 2023 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 February 2023 to 19 February 2023.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,405 hectares (64.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ndenga (6,445 ha, 1.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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 · 2023-02-06 → 2023-02-22

Ndenga fire, February 2023 Ndenga

Out · last detection 22 Feb 2023, 11:33 UTC

The fire started on 6 February 2023 in Ndenga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,405 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Nana-Grébizi since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 33 in Central African Republic in 2023, of 53.

Burnt area: 6,405ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 6 Feb 2023 – 22 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 6 Feb; 2023
Heat detections: 336; in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start: 46; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 5.0GW; sum of detected power

Play back 22 Feb 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Feb22 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213141516171819202122

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high

38km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 27 ha in 2016, 60 ha in 2017, 618 ha in 2020, 62 ha in 2021, 616 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,085 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Ndenga where it started

6,445 ha reached on 6 Feb

1.8 %

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)
6 Feb	38.3 °C	11 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
7 Feb	37.0 °C	15 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
8 Feb	37.2 °C	18 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Feb	37.2 °C	14 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
10 Feb	37.7 °C	13 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
11 Feb	38.5 °C	13 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
12 Feb	38.8 °C	14 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
13 Feb	37.4 °C	14 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
14 Feb	36.9 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
15 Feb	36.5 °C	13 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
16 Feb	35.0 °C	14 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
17 Feb	34.6 °C	15 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
18 Feb	36.3 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
19 Feb	37.5 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
20 Feb	37.6 °C	14 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
21 Feb	38.7 °C	13 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
22 Feb	39.2 °C	13 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
23 Feb after	36.3 °C	23 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
24 Feb after	36.7 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
25 Feb after	35.7 °C	23 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
26 Feb after	37.5 °C	20 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
27 Feb after	37.3 °C	16 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
28 Feb after	36.6 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
1 Mar after	36.0 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
2 Mar after	36.4 °C	31 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 44
3 Mar after	37.1 °C	28 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
4 Mar after	37.8 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Jan 2023

After · 1 Mar 2023

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.

Detections table · 336Every 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 Ndenga fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 February 2023 to 22 February 2023 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 February 2023 to 19 February 2023.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,405 hectares (64.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ndenga (6,445 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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 ↗

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