Ouadda fire, 3 February 2026 Dar El Kouti, Ouadda
The fire started on 3 February 2026 in Ouadda, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,056 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 219th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 373 with a page). Number 97 in Central African Republic in 2026, of 163.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 7,056ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 3 Feb 2026 – 7 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 3 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 77
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 59
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 145MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,487 ha in 2016, 1,278 ha in 2017, 1,001 ha in 2018, 1,246 ha in 2019, 2,396 ha in 2020, 1,931 ha in 2021, 608 ha in 2022, 1,148 ha in 2023, 1,655 ha in 2024, 962 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,803 ha that had burned before.
- 1,123 ha Dar El Kouti fire, January 2017 5,831 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 232 ha Ouadda fire, January 2020 6,018 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 57 ha Dar El Kouti fire, January 2024 7,036 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 21 ha Dar El Kouti fire, December 2016 19,474 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
-
3,881 ha0.1 %
-
Ouadda where it started3,221 ha0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Feb | 37.7 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 4 Feb | 37.4 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 5 Feb | 38.5 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 6 Feb | 35.2 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 7 Feb | 37.0 °C | 13 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Feb after | 37.4 °C | 5 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 9 Feb after | 36.9 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 10 Feb after | 36.6 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 11 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Feb after | 37.0 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 13 Feb after | 36.5 °C | 16 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 14 Feb after | 36.0 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Feb after | 37.8 °C | 8 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 16 Feb after | 38.2 °C | 6 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 17 Feb after | 37.7 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
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 7 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 129 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 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 · 0Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,352 haDar El Kouti1 January 2018 · 9 days · 11 km away
- 19,474 haDar El Kouti8 December 2016 · 22 days · 13 km away
- 43,149 haOuadda11 February 2026 · 27 days · 25 km away
- 40,174 haDar El KoutiFebruary 2021 · 22 days · 27 km away
- 41,372 haDar El Kouti19 December 2025 · 43 days · 31 km away
- 22,194 haDar El Kouti24 December 2025 · 24 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ouadda fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 February 2026 and 7 February 2026: 5 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,056 hectares (70.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dar El Kouti (3,881 ha, 0.1 %); Ouadda (3,221 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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 · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 10 February 2026 → 7 February 2026.
- Start date: 30 January 2026 → 3 February 2026.
- Name: Dar El Kouti → Ouadda.
- Last day with fire: 9 February 2026 → 10 February 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.