How long did the Ouadda fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 March 2021 to 8 March 2021 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 March 2021 to 6 March 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,095 hectares (51.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ouadda (5,130 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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 · 2021-03-01 → 2021-03-08

Ouadda fire, March 2021 Ouadda

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2021, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 1 March 2021 in Ouadda, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,095 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 360th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 92 in Central African Republic in 2021, of 95.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouadda · 2017 Ouadda · 2016 Ouadda · 2026 Ouadda · 2016

Burnt area: 5,095ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 1 Mar 2021 – 8 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 1 Mar; 2021
Heat detections: 145; in a single hotspot: 76 MW
Danger at start: 66; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 170MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Mar8 Mar

Play back 9 Mar 2021

How it evolved, day by day

2 Mar 3 Mar 4 Mar 6 Mar 8 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

46km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.0 mm on 17 Mar.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,309 ha in 2016, 2,988 ha in 2017, 585 ha in 2018, 2,464 ha in 2019, 821 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,982 ha that had burned before.

2,988 ha Ouadda fire, February 2017 5,040 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 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

Ouadda where it started

5,130 ha reached on 2 Mar

0.2 %

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)
1 Mar	37.5 °C	8 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
2 Mar	37.9 °C	7 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
3 Mar	37.9 °C	8 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
4 Mar	38.0 °C	8 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
5 Mar	37.8 °C	8 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
6 Mar	38.0 °C	9 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
7 Mar	37.9 °C	9 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
8 Mar	36.6 °C	17 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
9 Mar after	37.5 °C	16 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
10 Mar after	39.4 °C	7 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
11 Mar after	39.8 °C	9 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
12 Mar after	39.6 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
13 Mar after	37.9 °C	15 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
14 Mar after	37.2 °C	20 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
15 Mar after	37.0 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
16 Mar after	33.6 °C	24 %	33 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 50
17 Mar after	34.5 °C	31 %	32 km/h	7.0 mm	Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Feb 2021

After · 15 Mar 2021

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 · 145Every 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 Ouadda fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 March 2021 to 8 March 2021 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 March 2021 to 6 March 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,095 hectares (51.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ouadda (5,130 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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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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 3 March 2021 to 6 March 2021. 145 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.

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