Rafaï fire, February 2023 Rafaï
The fire started on 4 February 2023 in Rafaï, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 34,440 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 13th largest in Mbomou since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 5 in Central African Republic in 2023, of 53.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Yalinga · 2020Rafaï · 2020Rafaï · 2019Rafaï · 2016
- Burnt area
- 34,440ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 4 Feb 2023 – 20 Feb 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 4 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 1,189
- in a single hotspot: 253 MW
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 894MW
- 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
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 30,944 ha in 2016, 5,106 ha in 2017, 2,248 ha in 2018, 25,652 ha in 2019, 46,256 ha in 2020, 1,964 ha in 2021, 459 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 34,408 ha that had burned before.
- 27,018 ha Yalinga fire, December 2020 979,715 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 21,092 ha Rafaï fire, January 2020 131,336 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19,977 ha Rafaï fire, January 2019 61,568 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19,090 ha Rafaï fire, December 2016 92,402 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,349 ha Rafaï fire, February 2016 14,155 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,364 ha Rafaï fire, January 2016 53,938 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,584 ha Rafaï fire, February 2017 13,219 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 450 ha Rafaï fire, January 2016 125,550 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
-
Rafaï where it started34,688 ha reached on 4 Feb1.2 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Feb | 38.1 °C | 8 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 5 Feb | 38.6 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 6 Feb | 38.3 °C | 8 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 7 Feb | 36.3 °C | 14 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 8 Feb | 37.7 °C | 8 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 9 Feb | 37.3 °C | 9 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 10 Feb | 37.5 °C | 10 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 11 Feb | 39.0 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 12 Feb | 39.5 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 13 Feb | 37.7 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Feb | 38.3 °C | 11 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 15 Feb | 38.2 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 16 Feb | 35.8 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 17 Feb | 35.9 °C | 10 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 18 Feb | 36.5 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 19 Feb | 38.1 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 20 Feb | 38.5 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 21 Feb after | 38.8 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 22 Feb after | 38.6 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Feb after | 33.8 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Feb after | 37.2 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 25 Feb after | 36.8 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 26 Feb after | 37.5 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Feb after | 35.8 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 Feb after | 37.2 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 1 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 45 |
| 2 Mar after | 34.4 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
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.
Detections table · 1,189Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 61,568 haRafaï9 January 2019 · 19 days · 11 km away
- 53,938 haRafaï16 January 2016 · 22 days · 11 km away
- 14,155 haRafaï4 February 2016 · 5 days · 16 km away
- 92,402 haRafaï28 December 2016 · 35 days · 24 km away
- 131,336 haRafaï4 January 2020 · 38 days · 37 km away
- 16,747 haYalingaFebruary 2020 · 10 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rafaï fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 February 2023 and 20 February 2023: 17 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 34,440 hectares (344.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rafaï (34,688 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,189 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.
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.