How long did the Ouandja fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 October 2016 to 12 November 2016 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 November 2016 to 11 November 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,457 hectares (64.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ouandja (6,496 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.

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 · 2016-10-29 → 2016-11-12

Ouandja fire, 29 October 2016 Ouandja

Out · last detection 13 Nov 2016, 11:07 UTC

The fire started on 29 October 2016 in Ouandja, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,457 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 40th largest in Vakaga since 2016 (of 72 with a page). Number 105 in Central African Republic in 2016, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouandja · 2025 Ouandja · 2017

Burnt area: 6,457ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 29 Oct 2016 – 12 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 29 Oct; 2016
Heat detections: 222; in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start: 14; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 97MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Oct12 Nov

Play back 13 Nov 2016

How it evolved, day by day

29 Oct 31 Oct 2 Nov 6 Nov 8 Nov 10 Nov 12 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

46km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.1% of the area of London (65 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

Ouandja where it started

6,496 ha reached on 29 Oct

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)
29 Oct	33.3 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
30 Oct	33.3 °C	31 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
31 Oct	34.1 °C	30 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
1 Nov	34.3 °C	31 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
2 Nov	35.3 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
3 Nov	35.1 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
4 Nov	35.0 °C	22 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
5 Nov	34.9 °C	20 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
6 Nov	35.1 °C	18 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
7 Nov	35.6 °C	18 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
8 Nov	35.3 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
9 Nov	36.1 °C	14 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
10 Nov	35.4 °C	17 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
11 Nov	36.7 °C	13 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Nov	35.5 °C	16 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Nov after	34.8 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
14 Nov after	35.3 °C	25 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Nov after	35.1 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.2 mm	High 32
16 Nov after	36.6 °C	16 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
17 Nov after	36.0 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
18 Nov after	34.6 °C	22 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
19 Nov after	35.2 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Nov after	37.1 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
21 Nov after	37.8 °C	17 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
22 Nov after	36.4 °C	21 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Oct 2016

After · 19 Nov 2016

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 · 222Every 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 Ouandja fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 October 2016 to 12 November 2016 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 November 2016 to 11 November 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,457 hectares (64.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ouandja (6,496 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
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 do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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 5 November 2016 to 11 November 2016. 222 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