Burned area
satellite only17,150ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 25 Dec 2017 – 8 Jan 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CF · Central African Republic · –
Ouandja Kotto fire, 25 December 2017 Ouandja Kotto, Yalinga
Out · last detection 9 Jan 2018, 23:30 UTC
The fire started on 25 December 2017 in Ouandja Kotto, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,150 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 59th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 301 with a page). Number 18 in Central African Republic in 2017, of 97.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only15days
25 Dec 2017 to 8 Jan 2018: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 9 Jan 2018, 23:30 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only25 Dec 2017
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 25 Dec 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only908
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 86 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 25 Dec 2017 – 8 Jan 2018
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only1,722MW
Total radiative power on 2 January 2018; hotspots that day: 308.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 2 Jan 2018
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model69.8FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 35.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 25 Dec 2017, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model36.0°C · 16% RH
High of 36.0 °C and minimum humidity of 16% on 28 December 2017; gusts of 42 km/h on 1 January 2018.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 25 Dec 2017 – 8 Jan 2018
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logStart date: 31 December 2017 → 25 December 2017.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 17,150 ha
- Dates
- 25 Dec 2017 – 8 Jan 2018
- Name
- Ouandja Kotto
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/ouandja-kotto-2017-12-2?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire ouandja-kotto-2017-12-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-12-25 | 8 | 71 | 34.7 | 22.3 | 14 | 16.8 | 40 | 0 | 69.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-12-26 | 3 | 10 | 34.5 | 21.4 | 16 | 18 | 40.7 | 0 | 68.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-12-27 | 6 | 17 | 34.9 | 20.6 | 16 | 14.6 | 33.8 | 0 | 62.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-12-28 | 7 | 189 | 36 | 20.2 | 16 | 12.2 | 29.2 | 0 | 62.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-12-29 | 0 | 0 | 35.7 | 21.7 | 15 | 14.7 | 34.9 | 0 | 66.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-12-30 | 8 | 49 | 36 | 21 | 13 | 16.9 | 38.9 | 0 | 72.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2017-12-31 | 44 | 742 | 33.7 | 20.2 | 16 | 15.2 | 31.7 | 0 | 60.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2018-01-01 | 186 | 1,282 | 32.6 | 20.4 | 16 | 18.6 | 42.5 | 0 | 71.6 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2018-01-02 | 308 | 1,722 | 31.4 | 17.5 | 12 | 17.4 | 36.4 | 0 | 61.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2018-01-03 | 221 | 853 | 31.8 | 17.4 | 10 | 16 | 37.4 | 0 | 64.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2018-01-04 | 50 | 238 | 32.1 | 17.3 | 11 | 16.4 | 37.1 | 0 | 62.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2018-01-05 | 38 | 275 | 31.7 | 16.9 | 12 | 16.1 | 36.4 | 0 | 62 | extremo | 1 |
| 2018-01-06 | 17 | 131 | 32.2 | 17.5 | 13 | 14.3 | 32.8 | 0 | 56.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2018-01-07 | 3 | 22 | 32.6 | 18.5 | 12 | 15.5 | 36 | 0 | 60.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2018-01-08 | 6 | 18 | 32.9 | 19.1 | 13 | 14.8 | 34.6 | 0 | 60 | extremo | 1 |
| 2018-01-09 | 3 | 10 | 32.6 | 18.6 | 14 | 16.5 | 37.4 | 0 | 62.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2018-01-10 | 0 | 0 | 33.4 | 18.3 | 14 | 15.3 | 35.3 | 0 | 59 | extremo | 0 |
| 2018-01-11 | 0 | 0 | 34.1 | 18.2 | 13 | 12.6 | 31.7 | 0 | 54.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2018-01-12 | 0 | 0 | 34.8 | 20 | 13 | 14.7 | 36 | 0 | 63.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2018-01-13 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 19.9 | 12 | 13.4 | 33.8 | 0 | 63.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2018-01-14 | 0 | 0 | 35.9 | 20.5 | 12 | 14.1 | 32 | 0 | 62.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2018-01-15 | 0 | 0 | 34.4 | 20 | 14 | 16.4 | 33.1 | 0 | 65.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2018-01-16 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 19.9 | 10 | 16.6 | 37.4 | 0 | 67.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2018-01-17 | 0 | 0 | 34.3 | 19.4 | 8 | 16.6 | 38.2 | 0 | 68.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2018-01-18 | 0 | 0 | 34.1 | 18.4 | 11 | 14.7 | 34.2 | 0 | 62.5 | extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 17,150ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 15days
- 25 Dec 2017 – 8 Jan 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 25 Dec
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 908
- in a single hotspot: 86 MW
- Danger at start
- 70
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 375MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
25 Dec8 Jan
9 Jan 2018
How it evolved, day by day
25 Dec
28 Dec
2 Jan
7 Jan
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
36°high
42km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity
It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,132 ha in 2016.
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 Kotto where it started16,587 ha reached on 25 Dec2.8 %
-
650 ha reached on 27 Dec0.0 %
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 2015Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)
Started with Very dry air: 49 % of the area in Central African Republic
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Dec | 34.7 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 26 Dec | 34.5 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 27 Dec | 34.9 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 28 Dec | 36.0 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 29 Dec | 35.7 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 30 Dec | 36.0 °C | 13 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 31 Dec | 33.7 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 1 Jan | 32.6 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 2 Jan | 31.4 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 3 Jan | 31.8 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 4 Jan | 32.1 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 5 Jan | 31.7 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 6 Jan | 32.2 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 7 Jan | 32.6 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 8 Jan | 32.9 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 9 Jan after | 32.6 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 10 Jan after | 33.4 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 11 Jan after | 34.1 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 12 Jan after | 34.8 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 13 Jan after | 36.0 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 14 Jan after | 35.9 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 15 Jan after | 34.4 °C | 14 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 16 Jan after | 34.2 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 17 Jan after | 34.3 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 18 Jan after | 34.1 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 69.8, a minimum humidity of 14% and 35 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 34.
FWI at the start
69.8
Minimum humidity
14 %
Days without rain
35
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Ouandja Kotto fire, 25 December 2017
17,150 ha
15 days
FWI 69.8
Min. humidity 14 %
Yalinga fire, December 2021
13,828 ha
19 days
FWI 69.9
Min. humidity 15 %
60 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Yalinga fire, December 2021
13,892 ha
13 days
FWI 69.6
Min. humidity 14 %
93 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Yalinga fire, December 2021
16,467 ha
22 days
FWI 71.3
Min. humidity 13 %
63 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ouandja Kotto fire, January 2020
7,002 ha
14 days
FWI 71.4
Min. humidity 14 %
18 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Yalinga fire, December 2016
5,192 ha
7 days
FWI 67.4
Min. humidity 13 %
50 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 14 days
- median duration
- 7,370 ha
- median area
- 38 %
- went past 10,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 34 had it)
It was 2.3 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 15 days, against 14 days.
Only 4 of its 34 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
42km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 8 Jan, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 34 twins had rain when they ended.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 18 Dec 2017
After · 15 Jan 2018
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 908Every 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
- 14,601 haOuandja Kotto16 January 2022 · 31 days · 12 km away
- 21,689 haOuandja Kotto18 December 2021 · 25 days · 14 km away
- 27,700 haOuandja Kotto16 December 2017 · 29 days · 16 km away
- 15,971 haYalinga6 January 2026 · 14 days · 16 km away
- 39,398 haOuandja Kotto1 January 2026 · 34 days · 27 km away
- 17,168 haYalinga20 February 2026 · 18 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ouandja Kotto fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 December 2017 to 8 January 2018 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 December 2017 to 5 January 2018.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 17,150 hectares (171.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouandja Kotto (16,587 ha, 2.8 %); Yalinga (650 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 34. Their median duration was 14 days and their median area 7,370 ha; 38 % went past 10,000 ha. Only 4 of its 34 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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: 31 December 2017 → 25 December 2017.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 31 December 2017 to 5 January 2018. 908 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 2015, 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.