Vassako fire, 6 January 2021 Vassako
The fire started on 6 January 2021 in Vassako, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 53,841 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 5th largest in Bamingui-Bangoran since 2016 (of 222 with a page). Number 3 in Central African Republic in 2021, of 100.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 53,841ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 28days
- 6 Jan 2021 – 2 Feb 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 6 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 2,019
- in a single hotspot: 223 MW
- Danger at start
- 55
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 709MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 20,379 ha in 2016, 9,093 ha in 2017, 16,154 ha in 2018, 20,921 ha in 2019, 12,000 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 43,631 ha that had burned before.
- 6,607 ha Vassako fire, January 2019 9,554 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,134 ha Vassako fire, December 2016 16,610 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,441 ha Vassako fire, January 2018 10,959 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,521 ha Vassako fire, December 2016 7,707 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,255 ha Vassako fire, January 2016 5,755 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 859 ha Vassako fire, December 2018 5,167 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 603 ha Vassako fire, December 2016 10,031 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 387 ha Vassako fire, December 2016 5,585 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
-
Vassako where it started54,267 ha reached on 6 Jan2.4 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Jan | 38.9 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 7 Jan | 38.4 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 8 Jan | 37.4 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 9 Jan | 36.4 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 10 Jan | 36.7 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 11 Jan | 36.7 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Jan | 36.9 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 13 Jan | 36.9 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Jan | 36.6 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 15 Jan | 37.3 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Jan | 37.2 °C | 14 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 17 Jan | 37.5 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 18 Jan | 37.3 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 19 Jan | 36.2 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 20 Jan | 35.5 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 21 Jan | 33.7 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 22 Jan | 35.7 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 23 Jan | 37.1 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 24 Jan | 38.0 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 Jan | 38.3 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 26 Jan | 37.2 °C | 20 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 27 Jan | 38.6 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 28 Jan | 38.4 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 29 Jan | 37.7 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 30 Jan | 37.5 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 31 Jan | 37.1 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 1 Feb | 39.4 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 2 Feb | 39.2 °C | 13 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 3 Feb after | 38.6 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 4 Feb after | 38.4 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 5 Feb after | 37.6 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 6 Feb after | 35.7 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 7 Feb after | 35.6 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 8 Feb after | 35.7 °C | 8 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 9 Feb after | 36.4 °C | 9 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 10 Feb after | 37.3 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 11 Feb after | 38.5 °C | 12 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Feb after | 38.8 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
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 · 2,019Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,749 haVassako6 December 2016 · 16 days · 15 km away
- 15,742 haVassako18 December 2021 · 9 days · 16 km away
- 19,251 haVassako3 January 2019 · 10 days · 18 km away
- 10,959 haVassako7 January 2018 · 9 days · 20 km away
- 16,610 haVassako12 December 2016 · 19 days · 31 km away
- 42,287 haVassako19 December 2025 · 43 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Vassako fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 January 2021 to 2 February 2021 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 January 2021 to 27 January 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 53,841 hectares (538.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Vassako (54,267 ha, 2.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 January 2021 to 27 January 2021. 2,019 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 2020, 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.