How long did the Ridina fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 October 2026 to 3 November 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 October 2026 to 2 November 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,740 hectares (137.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouandja (7,038 ha, 0.4 %); Ridina (6,782 ha, 0.4 %).

Is the Ridina fire still active?

Yes: satellites detected fire on 3 Nov 2026, 12:36 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 52 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.

CF · Central African Republic · 2026-10-14 → 2026-11-03

Ridina fire, 14 October 2026 Ouandja, Ridina

Burning · last detection 3 Nov 2026, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 14 October 2026 in Ridina, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,740 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Vakaga since 2016 (of 83 with a page). Number 33 in Central African Republic in 2026, of 170.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouandja · 2026 Ouandja · 2026 Ridina · 2020 Ouandja · 2025

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 3 Nov 2026, 12:36 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Burnt area: 13,740ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 21days; 14 Oct 2026 – 3 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; sub-prefectures
Started on: 14 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 352; in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 152MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Oct3 Nov

Play back 3 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

14 Oct 17 Oct 20 Oct 23 Oct 26 Oct 29 Oct 1 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

52km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,403 ha in 2017, 790 ha in 2020, 199 ha in 2022, 2,153 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,006 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.7% of the area of London (137 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Ouandja

7,038 ha reached on 16 Oct

0.4 %
Ridina where it started

6,782 ha reached on 14 Oct

0.4 %

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
14 Oct	38.6 °C	19 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
15 Oct	39.6 °C	10 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Oct	39.1 °C	13 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Oct	38.2 °C	17 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
18 Oct	37.8 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
19 Oct	39.3 °C	11 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
20 Oct	39.5 °C	13 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
21 Oct	39.1 °C	14 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
22 Oct	39.5 °C	12 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
23 Oct	38.5 °C	13 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
24 Oct	38.2 °C	11 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
25 Oct	38.2 °C	13 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
26 Oct	38.8 °C	12 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
27 Oct	38.2 °C	11 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
28 Oct	35.8 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
29 Oct	37.5 °C	12 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
30 Oct	38.5 °C	11 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
31 Oct	38.5 °C	12 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
1 Nov	38.5 °C	13 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
2 Nov	38.4 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
3 Nov	39.6 °C	12 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Oct 2026

After · 2 Nov 2026

Before After

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 23 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak58 µg/m³

Days over the guideline12 days

PM10200 µg/m³

Optical depth0.73

WHO 15

181920212223242526272829

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 · 352Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Central African Republic ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ridina fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 October 2026 to 3 November 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 October 2026 to 2 November 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,740 hectares (137.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouandja (7,038 ha, 0.4 %); Ridina (6,782 ha, 0.4 %).
Is the Ridina fire still active?: Yes: satellites detected fire on 3 Nov 2026, 12:36 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 52 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 30 October 2026.

3 November 2026 Mapped perimeter arrives: from ≈ 5,530 ha estimated from hotspots to 13,740 ha.
3 November 2026 Start date: 20 October 2026 → 14 October 2026.
3 November 2026 The page “Ridina, 14 October 2026” has been merged into this one: it was the same fire.
30 October 2026 Page published (≈ 5,530 ha).

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 October 2026 to 2 November 2026. 352 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.