Rafaï fire, 2 March 2023 Rafaï
The fire started on 2 March 2023 in Rafaï, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,721 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 64th largest in Mbomou since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 44 in Central African Republic in 2023, of 53.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Yalinga · 2020Rafaï · 2016Rafaï · 2020Yalinga · 2017
- Burnt area
- 5,721ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 2 Mar 2023 – 6 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 2 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 213
- in a single hotspot: 235 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.0GW
- 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. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 8 Mar.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,954 ha in 2016, 1,732 ha in 2017, 6,386 ha in 2020, 376 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,740 ha that had burned before.
- 4,478 ha Yalinga fire, December 2020 979,715 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,451 ha Rafaï fire, January 2016 125,550 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,525 ha Rafaï fire, January 2020 131,336 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 582 ha Yalinga fire, January 2017 238,204 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 376 ha Rafaï fire, December 2022 12,591 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 370 ha Yalinga fire, January 2020 234,858 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 349 ha Rafaï fire, January 2016 58,216 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 started5,766 ha reached on 2 Mar0.2 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Mar | 35.3 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Mar | 35.8 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Mar | 38.2 °C | 10 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 5 Mar | 40.0 °C | 6 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 6 Mar | 39.3 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 7 Mar after | 39.0 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 8 Mar after | 37.2 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 1.0 mm | Very high 41 |
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 · 213Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 125,550 haRafaï2 January 2016 · 31 days · 4 km away
- 234,858 haYalinga4 January 2020 · 50 days · 12 km away
- 131,336 haRafaï4 January 2020 · 38 days · 18 km away
- 238,204 haYalinga17 January 2017 · 22 days · 19 km away
- 149,622 haYalinga15 February 2026 · 31 days · 33 km away
- 80,563 haRafaï10 December 2018 · 45 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rafaï fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 March 2023 and 6 March 2023: 5 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 5,721 hectares (57.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rafaï (5,766 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 37 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
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 213 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.