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CF · Central African Republic · →

Rafaï fire, March 2025 Rafaï

Out · last detection 27 Mar 2025, 23:43 UTC

The fire started on 22 March 2025 in Rafaï, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,767 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 56th largest in Mbomou since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 96 in Central African Republic in 2025, of 145.

Burnt area
6,767ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
22 Mar 2025 – 27 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
22 Mar
2025
Heat detections
222
in a single hotspot: 99 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Mar 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Mar27 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2224252627

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
35km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.0 mm on 31 Mar.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,574 ha in 2016, 114 ha in 2017, 3,399 ha in 2019, 9,816 ha in 2020, 5,515 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,775 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Rafaï where it started
    6,815 ha reached on 22 Mar
    0.2 %

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)
22 Mar 37.3 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
23 Mar 35.3 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44
24 Mar 37.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Mar 38.5 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Mar 39.2 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Mar 36.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Mar after 36.3 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Mar after 35.5 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
30 Mar after 37.5 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm High 34
31 Mar after 33.1 °C 45 % 41 km/h 7.0 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2025
After · 3 Apr 2025

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 27 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak57 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10128 µg/m³
Optical depth0.92
2021222324252627282930
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 222Every 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 22 March 2025 to 27 March 2025 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 March 2025 to 27 March 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,767 hectares (67.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rafaï (6,815 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
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.