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Vassako fire, 4 January 2016 Vassako

Out · last detection 8 Jan 2016, 11:21 UTC

The fire started on 4 January 2016 in Vassako, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,755 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 180th largest in Bamingui-Bangoran since 2016 (of 223 with a page). Number 127 in Central African Republic in 2016, of 165.

Burnt area
5,755ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
4 Jan 2016 – 8 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
4 Jan
2016
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 265 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jan8 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

45678

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
33km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Vassako where it started
    5,803 ha reached on 4 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
4 Jan 34.9 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Jan 36.6 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Jan 38.1 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Jan 38.3 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Jan 38.3 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Jan after 38.2 °C 7 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Jan after 37.1 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Jan after 37.1 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Jan after 36.9 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Jan after 36.6 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Jan after 36.5 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Jan after 36.4 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Jan after 36.2 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Jan after 35.8 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Jan after 34.8 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Dec 2015
After · 15 Jan 2016

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 · 121Every 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 Vassako fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 January 2016 and 8 January 2016: 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 5,755 hectares (57.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vassako (5,803 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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

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.