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Ouandja fire, 10 December 2025 Ouandja, Ridina

Out · last detection 20 Dec 2025, 12:27 UTC

The fire started on 10 December 2025 in Ouandja, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,027 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 22th largest in Vakaga since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 59 in Central African Republic in 2025, of 138.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouandja · 2017Ouandja · 2021Ouandja · 2016Ridina · 2016

Burnt area
9,027ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
10 Dec 2025 – 20 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
2
sub-prefectures
Started on
10 Dec
2025
Heat detections
172
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
107MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Dec20 Dec
20 Dec 2025

How it evolved, day by day

10 Dec 2025 · 38 MW · 5 12 Dec 2025 · 53 MW · 7 13 Dec 2025 · 173 MW · 31 14 Dec 2025 · 109 MW · 21 15 Dec 2025 · 338 MW · 34 16 Dec 2025 · 38 MW · 12 17 Dec 2025 · 82 MW · 20 18 Dec 2025 · 105 MW · 14 19 Dec 2025 · 44 MW · 20 20 Dec 2025 · 86 MW · 8
10 Dec 13 Dec 15 Dec 17 Dec 19 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
47km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,579 ha in 2016, 4,384 ha in 2017, 525 ha in 2019, 3,703 ha in 2021, 808 ha in 2022, 1,865 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,588 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.7% of the area of London (90 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

  1. Ouandja where it started
    7,336 ha reached on 10 Dec
    0.4 %
  2. Ridina
    1,746 ha reached on 12 Dec
    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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 Rain Danger (FWI)
10 Dec 33.9 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Dec 33.4 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Dec 34.6 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Dec 34.4 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Dec 33.3 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Dec 31.8 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Dec 31.4 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Dec 31.6 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Dec 31.6 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
19 Dec 32.2 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Dec 33.4 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Dec after 34.9 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Dec after 35.3 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Dec after 35.0 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Dec after 36.2 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Dec after 36.4 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Dec after 36.4 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
27 Dec after 36.0 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 Dec after 34.8 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
29 Dec after 34.5 °C 7 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
30 Dec after 34.3 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Dec 2025
After · 27 Dec 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 17 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak63 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10399 µg/m³
Optical depth0.63
891011121314151617181920212223
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 172Every 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 Ouandja fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 December 2025 to 20 December 2025 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 December 2025 to 20 December 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,027 hectares (90.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouandja (7,336 ha, 0.4 %); Ridina (1,746 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 47 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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 12 December 2025 to 20 December 2025. 172 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 2025, 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.