Ouadda fire, 26 January 2026 Ouadda
The fire started on 26 January 2026 in Ouadda, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,436 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 332th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 125 in Central African Republic in 2026, of 147.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Ouadda · 2021Ouadda · 2019Ouadda · 2018Ouadda · 2017
- Burnt area
- 5,436ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 26 Jan 2026 – 7 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 26 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 97
- in a single hotspot: 58 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 134MW
- 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
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,338 ha in 2016, 1,270 ha in 2017, 856 ha in 2018, 1,104 ha in 2019, 2,274 ha in 2020, 2,335 ha in 2021, 1,673 ha in 2022, 461 ha in 2023, 543 ha in 2024, 741 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,063 ha that had burned before.
- 2,026 ha Ouadda fire, February 2021 15,520 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,090 ha Ouadda fire, February 2019 6,033 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 447 ha Ouadda fire, January 2018 7,465 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 222 ha Ouadda fire, January 2017 5,739 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4 ha Ouadda fire, February 2019 5,501 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
-
Ouadda where it started5,471 ha reached on 26 Jan0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Feb | 36.8 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 3 Feb | 37.3 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 4 Feb | 38.5 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 5 Feb | 38.4 °C | 11 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 6 Feb | 34.7 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Feb | 36.4 °C | 18 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Feb after | 37.4 °C | 8 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 9 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 10 Feb after | 36.4 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 11 Feb after | 36.1 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Feb after | 36.7 °C | 23 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 Feb after | 35.9 °C | 20 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Feb after | 35.5 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 15 Feb after | 37.6 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Feb after | 37.6 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Feb after | 36.8 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
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 111 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 · 97Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ouadda fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 January 2026 to 7 February 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 February 2026 to 7 February 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,436 hectares (54.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ouadda (5,471 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 2 February 2026 → 26 January 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 February 2026 to 7 February 2026. 97 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.