How long did the Ouandja fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 November 2021 to 21 November 2021 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 November 2021 to 20 November 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,883 hectares (58.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouandja (4,888 ha, 0.2 %); Ridina (1,031 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 · 2021-11-12 → 2021-11-21

Ouandja fire, 12 November 2021 Ouandja, Ridina

Out · last detection 20 Nov 2021, 11:40 UTC

The fire started on 12 November 2021 in Ouandja, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,883 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 52th largest in Vakaga since 2016 (of 72 with a page). Number 75 in Central African Republic in 2021, of 95.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouandja · 2017 Ouandja · 2025 Ouandja · 2016 Ridina · 2016

Burnt area: 5,883ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 12 Nov 2021 – 21 Nov 2021
Municipalities hit: 2; sub-prefectures
Started on: 12 Nov; 2021
Heat detections: 133; in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start: 32; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 108MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Nov21 Nov

Play back 20 Nov 2021

How it evolved, day by day

13 Nov 15 Nov 16 Nov 17 Nov 19 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

48km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 453 ha in 2016, 2,368 ha in 2017, 31 ha in 2019.

2,368 ha Ouandja fire, November 2017 5,783 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.7% of the area of London (59 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

4,888 ha reached on 13 Nov

0.2 %
Ridina

1,031 ha reached on 14 Nov

0.1 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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	Danger (FWI)
13 Nov	36.7 °C	24 %	23 km/h	High 32
14 Nov	36.9 °C	17 %	25 km/h	High 33
15 Nov	36.8 °C	17 %	29 km/h	High 35
16 Nov	36.0 °C	21 %	24 km/h	High 35
17 Nov	37.2 °C	15 %	35 km/h	Very high 41
18 Nov	37.2 °C	16 %	36 km/h	Very high 42
19 Nov	37.0 °C	17 %	35 km/h	Very high 42
20 Nov	36.5 °C	15 %	44 km/h	Extreme 50
21 Nov	35.4 °C	13 %	48 km/h	Extreme 53
22 Nov after	35.1 °C	14 %	48 km/h	Extreme 54
23 Nov after	35.4 °C	14 %	44 km/h	Extreme 52
24 Nov after	36.0 °C	12 %	40 km/h	Extreme 50
25 Nov after	35.7 °C	13 %	42 km/h	Extreme 52
26 Nov after	36.0 °C	10 %	38 km/h	Extreme 52
27 Nov after	35.9 °C	11 %	39 km/h	Extreme 53
28 Nov after	36.8 °C	14 %	41 km/h	Extreme 54
29 Nov after	37.9 °C	17 %	40 km/h	Extreme 55
30 Nov after	37.5 °C	16 %	38 km/h	Extreme 53
1 Dec after	36.9 °C	15 %	40 km/h	Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Nov 2021

After · 28 Nov 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 · 133Every 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 12 November 2021 to 21 November 2021 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 November 2021 to 20 November 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,883 hectares (58.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouandja (4,888 ha, 0.2 %); Ridina (1,031 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Start date: 13 November 2021 → 12 November 2021.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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 13 November 2021 to 20 November 2021. 133 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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