How long did the Rafaï fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 December 2016 to 31 January 2017 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 December 2016 to 25 January 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 92,402 hectares (924.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Rafaï (93,074 ha, 3.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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 · 2016-12-28 → 2017-01-31

Rafaï fire, 28 December 2016 Rafaï

Out · last detection 1 Feb 2017, 23:43 UTC

The fire started on 28 December 2016 in Rafaï, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 92,402 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Mbomou since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 3 in Central African Republic in 2016, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Rafaï · 2016 Rafaï · 2016 Rafaï · 2016 Rafaï · 2023

Burnt area: 92,402ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 35days; 28 Dec 2016 – 31 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 28 Dec; 2016
Heat detections: 3,037; in a single hotspot: 208 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.0GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Dec31 Jan

Play back 1 Feb 2017

How it evolved, day by day

28 Dec 2 Jan 7 Jan 12 Jan 18 Jan 23 Jan 29 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

40°high

40km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 31,253 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 58% of the area of London (924 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

Rafaï where it started

93,074 ha reached on 28 Dec

3.4 %

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 2015

Built-up area0.27 ha

Residents≈ 80

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.27 hectares of built-up land and about 80 residents (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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
28 Dec	35.3 °C	19 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
29 Dec	35.4 °C	16 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 Dec	36.5 °C	14 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
31 Dec	36.9 °C	13 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
1 Jan	36.0 °C	15 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
2 Jan	34.4 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Jan	35.0 °C	14 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Jan	36.7 °C	14 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
5 Jan	36.6 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
6 Jan	37.8 °C	12 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
7 Jan	37.5 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
8 Jan	37.3 °C	9 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
9 Jan	36.4 °C	10 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
10 Jan	36.3 °C	11 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
11 Jan	36.3 °C	12 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
12 Jan	37.7 °C	10 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
13 Jan	37.6 °C	10 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
14 Jan	36.8 °C	15 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
15 Jan	38.0 °C	10 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
16 Jan	38.8 °C	9 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
17 Jan	39.3 °C	8 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
18 Jan	38.6 °C	9 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
19 Jan	38.9 °C	10 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
20 Jan	37.8 °C	15 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
21 Jan	38.6 °C	10 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
22 Jan	38.8 °C	11 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
23 Jan	39.5 °C	11 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
24 Jan	36.6 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
25 Jan	35.8 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
26 Jan	36.2 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
27 Jan	35.8 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
28 Jan	37.1 °C	14 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Jan	35.1 °C	26 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Jan	35.4 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
31 Jan	37.2 °C	16 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
1 Feb after	38.4 °C	7 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
2 Feb after	36.6 °C	7 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
3 Feb after	35.5 °C	8 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
4 Feb after	36.6 °C	10 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
5 Feb after	38.6 °C	11 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
6 Feb after	39.2 °C	9 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
7 Feb after	38.8 °C	11 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
8 Feb after	37.6 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
9 Feb after	37.1 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	Extreme 50
10 Feb after	38.8 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Dec 2016

After · 7 Feb 2017

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 · 3,037Every 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 Rafaï fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 December 2016 to 31 January 2017 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 December 2016 to 25 January 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 92,402 hectares (924.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Rafaï (93,074 ha, 3.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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 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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What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 December 2016 to 25 January 2017. 3,037 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.

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