How long did the Vokouma fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 January 2016 to 13 January 2016 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 January 2016 to 11 January 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,208 hectares (62.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vokouma (5,707 ha, 0.6 %); Ouadda (537 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 · 2016-01-01 → 2016-01-13

Vokouma fire, 1 January 2016 Vokouma, Ouadda

Out · last detection 12 Jan 2016, 11:46 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2016 in Vokouma, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,208 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 47th largest in Vakaga since 2016 (of 72 with a page). Number 112 in Central African Republic in 2016, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouadda · 2025 Ouandja Kotto · 2025

Burnt area: 6,208ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 1 Jan 2016 – 13 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; sub-prefectures
Started on: 1 Jan; 2016
Heat detections: 194; in a single hotspot: 119 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 95MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan13 Jan

Play back 12 Jan 2016

How it evolved, day by day

1 Jan 3 Jan 5 Jan 7 Jan 9 Jan 11 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

35°high

40km/h · peak gust

8%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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3.9% of the area of London (62 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

Vokouma where it started

5,707 ha reached on 1 Jan

0.6 %
Ouadda

537 ha reached on 4 Jan

0.0 %

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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Danger (FWI)
1 Jan	33.8 °C	16 %	26 km/h	Very high 43
2 Jan	31.7 °C	17 %	38 km/h	Very high 49
3 Jan	30.8 °C	18 %	40 km/h	Very high 49
4 Jan	32.2 °C	16 %	32 km/h	Very high 45
5 Jan	34.1 °C	14 %	35 km/h	Very high 46
6 Jan	34.8 °C	14 %	38 km/h	Very high 49
7 Jan	35.1 °C	14 %	36 km/h	Very high 47
8 Jan	35.2 °C	9 %	32 km/h	Extreme 52
9 Jan	35.1 °C	9 %	32 km/h	Extreme 51
10 Jan	33.8 °C	8 %	34 km/h	Extreme 52
11 Jan	34.0 °C	10 %	28 km/h	Very high 49
12 Jan	34.4 °C	11 %	30 km/h	Very high 50
13 Jan	34.2 °C	13 %	30 km/h	Extreme 51
14 Jan after	33.6 °C	12 %	33 km/h	Extreme 52
15 Jan after	33.4 °C	13 %	35 km/h	Extreme 54
16 Jan after	33.7 °C	14 %	34 km/h	Extreme 52
17 Jan after	34.1 °C	13 %	27 km/h	Extreme 51
18 Jan after	33.4 °C	13 %	31 km/h	Very high 49
19 Jan after	33.1 °C	12 %	30 km/h	Extreme 52
20 Jan after	33.3 °C	12 %	32 km/h	Extreme 53
21 Jan after	33.5 °C	11 %	31 km/h	Extreme 54
22 Jan after	33.2 °C	10 %	30 km/h	Extreme 51
23 Jan after	34.2 °C	9 %	27 km/h	Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Dec 2015

After · 20 Jan 2016

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.

Detections table · 194Every 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 Vokouma fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 January 2016 to 13 January 2016 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 January 2016 to 11 January 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,208 hectares (62.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vokouma (5,707 ha, 0.6 %); Ouadda (537 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 January 2016 to 11 January 2016. 194 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.

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.

Where it burned