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Vassako fire, 27 December 2025 Vassako

Out · last detection 23 Jan 2026, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 27 December 2025 in Vassako, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,016 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in Bamingui-Bangoran since 2016 (of 223 with a page). Number 47 in Central African Republic in 2025, of 145.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Vassako · 2017Vassako · 2022Vassako · 2025Vassako · 2016

Burnt area
12,016ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
27 Dec 2025 – 23 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
27 Dec
2025
Heat detections
328
in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
109MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Dec23 Jan
23 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

27 Dec 2025 · 14 MW · 4 28 Dec 2025 · 56 MW · 5 30 Dec 2025 · 56 MW · 8 31 Dec 2025 · 55 MW · 4 1 Jan 2026 · 322 MW · 32 2 Jan 2026 · 6 MW · 2 4 Jan 2026 · 33 MW · 6 5 Jan 2026 · 19 MW · 3 6 Jan 2026 · 526 MW · 26 7 Jan 2026 · 65 MW · 11 8 Jan 2026 · 6 MW · 2 9 Jan 2026 · 11 MW · 5 10 Jan 2026 · 74 MW · 13 11 Jan 2026 · 67 MW · 13 12 Jan 2026 · 194 MW · 32 13 Jan 2026 · 110 MW · 18 14 Jan 2026 · 23 MW · 20 15 Jan 2026 · 12 MW · 6 16 Jan 2026 · 43 MW · 8 17 Jan 2026 · 240 MW · 46 18 Jan 2026 · 179 MW · 20 19 Jan 2026 · 204 MW · 15 21 Jan 2026 · 3 MW · 1 22 Jan 2026 · 383 MW · 24 23 Jan 2026 · 33 MW · 4
27 Dec 1 Jan 6 Jan 10 Jan 14 Jan 18 Jan 23 Jan

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
36km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,338 ha in 2016, 2,866 ha in 2017, 601 ha in 2018, 2,632 ha in 2019, 2,562 ha in 2021, 3,694 ha in 2022, 1,355 ha in 2023, 1,687 ha in 2024, 1,231 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,440 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.6% of the area of London (120 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

  1. Vassako where it started
    12,101 ha reached on 27 Dec
    0.6 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
27 Dec 38.2 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Dec 37.3 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Dec 36.2 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Dec 36.1 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Dec 37.1 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Jan 37.6 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Jan 38.6 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Jan 37.9 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Jan 38.4 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Jan 38.4 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Jan 38.9 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Jan 38.1 °C 6 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Jan 38.2 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Jan 38.3 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Jan 36.5 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Jan 35.9 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Jan 36.3 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Jan 38.1 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Jan 37.7 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Jan 37.0 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Jan 36.2 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jan 37.0 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Jan 38.0 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Jan 37.9 °C 6 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
20 Jan 37.5 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Jan 38.3 °C 6 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Jan 38.9 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Jan 38.0 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Jan after 38.3 °C 15 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jan after 39.4 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Jan after 40.3 °C 11 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Jan after 39.8 °C 5 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Jan after 38.7 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 Jan after 38.1 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Jan after 39.0 °C 11 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Jan after 38.4 °C 11 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Feb after 38.1 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Feb after 38.6 °C 12 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Dec 2025
After · 30 Jan 2026

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 20 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 156 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 93: 6.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak156 µg/m³
Days over the guideline33 days
PM10167 µg/m³
Optical depth0.80
252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526
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 · 328Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 December 2025 to 23 January 2026 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 January 2026 to 23 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,016 hectares (120.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vassako (12,101 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.

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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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 1 January 2026 to 23 January 2026. 328 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.