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Ouadda fire, March 2023 Ouadda

Out · last detection 6 Mar 2023, 11:08 UTC

The fire started on 2 March 2023 in Ouadda, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,527 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 243th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 30 in Central African Republic in 2023, of 53.

Burnt area
6,527ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
2 Mar 2023 – 7 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
2 Mar
2023
Heat detections
168
in a single hotspot: 172 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Mar 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Mar7 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

23456

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
43km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,793 ha in 2016, 4,177 ha in 2017, 886 ha in 2018, 2,390 ha in 2019, 2,622 ha in 2020, 9 ha in 2021, 2,943 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,066 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ouadda where it started
    6,573 ha reached on 2 Mar
    0.3 %

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)
2 Mar 37.5 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Mar 36.5 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Mar 38.1 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Mar 39.1 °C 5 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
6 Mar 39.6 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
7 Mar 38.1 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Mar after 37.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Mar after 37.1 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Mar after 35.4 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Mar after 38.3 °C 7 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Mar after 36.6 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Mar after 34.8 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Mar after 35.8 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Mar after 34.3 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm High 35
16 Mar after 35.3 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.7 mm High 36
17 Mar after 34.1 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Feb 2023
After · 14 Mar 2023

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 · 168Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

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 2 March 2023 to 7 March 2023 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 March 2023 to 6 March 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,527 hectares (65.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ouadda (6,573 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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

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.