Rafaï fire, 12 December 2025 Rafaï
The fire started on 12 December 2025 in Rafaï, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,032 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 78th largest in Mbomou since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 143 in Central African Republic in 2025, of 145.
- Burnt area
- 5,032ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 12 Dec 2025 – 19 Dec 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 12 Dec
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 92
- in a single hotspot: 79 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 869MW
- sum of detected power
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 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,991 ha in 2016, 4,311 ha in 2017, 1 ha in 2018, 1,805 ha in 2019, 3,587 ha in 2020, 25 ha in 2021, 75 ha in 2022, 158 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,841 ha that had burned before.
- 4,211 ha Yalinga fire, January 2017 238,204 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,568 ha Yalinga fire, December 2020 979,715 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,904 ha Rafaï fire, January 2016 40,527 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 99 ha Rafaï fire, January 2017 28,760 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 75 ha Rafaï fire, November 2022 12,351 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 58 ha Rafaï fire, December 2018 80,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Rafaï where it started5,071 ha reached on 12 Dec0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Dec | 33.5 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Dec | 34.4 °C | 20 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Dec | 34.7 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Dec | 33.4 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Dec | 33.2 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Dec | 32.9 °C | 21 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 18 Dec | 33.5 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Dec | 33.9 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Dec after | 34.8 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Dec after | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 22 Dec after | 35.1 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Dec after | 33.6 °C | 24 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 24 Dec after | 35.5 °C | 22 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Dec after | 35.1 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Dec after | 35.2 °C | 19 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Dec after | 36.7 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Dec after | 35.9 °C | 12 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Dec after | 33.0 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 17 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 92Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rafaï fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 December 2025 and 19 December 2025: 8 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 5,032 hectares (50.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rafaï (5,071 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.
Report an error
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.