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Vokouma fire, November 2019 Vokouma

Out · last detection 17 Dec 2019, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 24 November 2019 in Vokouma, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,656 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Vakaga since 2016 (of 72 with a page). Number 7 in Central African Republic in 2019, of 67.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Vokouma · 2017Vokouma · 2025Ouandja · 2017Vokouma · 2025

Burnt area
21,656ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
24 Nov 2019 – 17 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
24 Nov
2019
Heat detections
800
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
262MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Nov17 Dec
17 Dec 2019

How it evolved, day by day

25 Nov 2019 · 160 MW · 19 26 Nov 2019 · 246 MW · 25 27 Nov 2019 · 57 MW · 27 28 Nov 2019 · 66 MW · 11 29 Nov 2019 · 240 MW · 31 30 Nov 2019 · 566 MW · 58 1 Dec 2019 · 222 MW · 46 2 Dec 2019 · 121 MW · 37 3 Dec 2019 · 187 MW · 26 4 Dec 2019 · 1,064 MW · 109 5 Dec 2019 · 349 MW · 53 6 Dec 2019 · 436 MW · 107 7 Dec 2019 · 225 MW · 69 8 Dec 2019 · 96 MW · 38 9 Dec 2019 · 985 MW · 81 10 Dec 2019 · 317 MW · 46 11 Dec 2019 · 14 MW · 4 12 Dec 2019 · 140 MW · 4 14 Dec 2019 · 24 MW · 2 15 Dec 2019 · 251 MW · 5 16 Dec 2019 · 2 MW · 1 17 Dec 2019 · 2 MW · 1
25 Nov 29 Nov 3 Dec 4 Dec 7 Dec 11 Dec 16 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,453 ha in 2016, 3,013 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 14% of the area of London (217 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. Vokouma where it started
    21,811 ha reached on 25 Nov
    2.4 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside 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)
24 Nov 33.6 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Nov 33.7 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Nov 34.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Nov 35.0 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Nov 34.4 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Nov 33.9 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Nov 34.3 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Dec 34.5 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Dec 34.0 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Dec 33.8 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Dec 33.6 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Dec 33.7 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Dec 33.8 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Dec 33.8 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Dec 33.4 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Dec 32.9 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Dec 33.9 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Dec 34.5 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Dec 35.3 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Dec 34.3 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Dec 35.1 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Dec 35.5 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Dec 34.5 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Dec 34.1 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Dec after 33.7 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Dec after 33.2 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Dec after 34.6 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Dec after 34.5 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Dec after 34.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Dec after 35.0 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Dec after 35.2 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Dec after 35.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Dec after 33.8 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
27 Dec after 33.3 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Nov 2019
After · 24 Dec 2019

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 · 800Every 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 Vokouma fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 November 2019 to 17 December 2019 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 November 2019 to 10 December 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,656 hectares (216.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vokouma (21,811 ha, 2.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 15 December 2019 → 17 December 2019.

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 27 November 2019 to 10 December 2019. 800 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.

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.