Ouandja fire, 16 January 2026 Ouandja
The fire started on 16 January 2026 in Ouandja, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,108 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 21th largest in Vakaga since 2016 (of 72 with a page). Number 54 in Central African Republic in 2026, of 148.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 9,108ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 16 Jan 2026 – 1 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 16 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 151
- in a single hotspot: 42 MW
- Danger at start
- 71
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 90MW
- 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
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 607 ha in 2016, 2,683 ha in 2017, 3,613 ha in 2019, 2,104 ha in 2020, 3,175 ha in 2021, 2,367 ha in 2022, 3,885 ha in 2023, 380 ha in 2024, 956 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,424 ha that had burned before.
- 2,647 ha Ouandja fire, November 2021 7,703 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 304 ha Ouandja fire, December 2025 17,283 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 50 ha Ouandja fire, January 2021 6,077 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
-
Ouandja where it started9,170 ha reached on 16 Jan0.5 %
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 2025Inside 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jan | 33.7 °C | 10 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 17 Jan | 35.5 °C | 11 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 18 Jan | 36.2 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 19 Jan | 36.2 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 20 Jan | 35.8 °C | 11 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 21 Jan | 37.3 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 22 Jan | 38.8 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 23 Jan | 38.1 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Jan | 40.0 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 25 Jan | 39.6 °C | 10 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 26 Jan | 39.6 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 27 Jan | 40.0 °C | 7 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 28 Jan | 37.7 °C | 10 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 29 Jan | 36.7 °C | 9 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 30 Jan | 37.5 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 31 Jan | 38.3 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 1 Feb | 38.5 °C | 8 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 2 Feb after | 39.1 °C | 7 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 3 Feb after | 39.4 °C | 6 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 4 Feb after | 38.4 °C | 6 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 79 |
| 5 Feb after | 39.3 °C | 7 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 6 Feb after | 37.3 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 7 Feb after | 38.7 °C | 7 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 8 Feb after | 38.8 °C | 3 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 9 Feb after | 38.7 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 10 Feb after | 38.4 °C | 11 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 11 Feb after | 39.1 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
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 14 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 83: 5.5 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 · 151Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,703 haOuandja20 November 2021 · 14 days · 4 km away
- 17,283 haOuandja14 December 2025 · 26 days · 20 km away
- 6,777 haOuandja4 December 2016 · 7 days · 31 km away
- 6,522 haOuandja24 November 2021 · 9 days · 32 km away
- 10,592 haRidinaDecember 2025 · 14 days · 37 km away
- 9,661 haOuandja23 November 2017 · 15 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ouandja fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 January 2026 to 1 February 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 January 2026 to 31 January 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,108 hectares (91.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ouandja (9,170 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, class Very 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.
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 20 January 2026 to 31 January 2026. 151 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.
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.