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Rafaï fire, 1 January 2017 Rafaï

Out · last detection 17 Jan 2017, 12:28 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2017 in Rafaï, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,500 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Mbomou since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 30 in Central African Republic in 2017, of 100.

Burnt area
11,500ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
1 Jan 2017 – 17 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
1 Jan
2017
Heat detections
422
in a single hotspot: 272 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan17 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
44km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 227 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Rafaï where it started
    11,593 ha reached on 1 Jan
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
1 Jan 36.1 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Jan 34.6 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Jan 34.7 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Jan 35.9 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Jan 35.8 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Jan 37.0 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Jan 36.9 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Jan 36.9 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Jan 35.8 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Jan 36.0 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Jan 36.4 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Jan 37.5 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Jan 37.1 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Jan 36.7 °C 11 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Jan 37.9 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Jan 38.7 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Jan 39.0 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Jan after 38.8 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Jan after 38.5 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Jan after 38.2 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Jan after 38.5 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Jan after 38.6 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Jan after 39.1 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
24 Jan after 37.6 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Jan after 35.7 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Jan after 36.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jan after 35.9 °C 19 % 27 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 · 25 Dec 2016
After · 24 Jan 2017

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 · 422Every 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 Rafaï fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 January 2017 to 17 January 2017 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 January 2017 to 10 January 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,500 hectares (115.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rafaï (11,593 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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

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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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.