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Vokouma fire, 7 December 2019 Vokouma

Out · last detection 6 Jan 2020, 12:03 UTC

The fire started on 7 December 2019 in Vokouma, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,201 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Vakaga since 2016 (of 77 with a page). Number 11 in Central African Republic in 2019, of 64.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Vokouma · 2017Vokouma · 2020Vokouma · 2025Vokouma · 2021

Burnt area
16,201ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
7 Dec 2019 – 6 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
7 Dec
2019
Heat detections
695
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
125MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Dec6 Jan
6 Jan 2020

How it evolved, day by day

7 Dec 2019 · 95 MW · 9 8 Dec 2019 · 25 MW · 10 10 Dec 2019 · 3 MW · 1 11 Dec 2019 · 76 MW · 9 12 Dec 2019 · 26 MW · 3 15 Dec 2019 · 8 MW · 2 16 Dec 2019 · 29 MW · 8 17 Dec 2019 · 19 MW · 8 18 Dec 2019 · 45 MW · 23 19 Dec 2019 · 167 MW · 30 20 Dec 2019 · 162 MW · 29 21 Dec 2019 · 158 MW · 28 22 Dec 2019 · 128 MW · 37 23 Dec 2019 · 115 MW · 33 24 Dec 2019 · 128 MW · 59 25 Dec 2019 · 764 MW · 96 26 Dec 2019 · 319 MW · 52 27 Dec 2019 · 160 MW · 39 28 Dec 2019 · 194 MW · 41 29 Dec 2019 · 154 MW · 55 30 Dec 2019 · 303 MW · 40 31 Dec 2019 · 96 MW · 20 1 Jan 2020 · 92 MW · 9 2 Jan 2020 · 118 MW · 24 3 Jan 2020 · 25 MW · 21 4 Jan 2020 · 20 MW · 3 5 Jan 2020 · 58 MW · 4 6 Jan 2020 · 8 MW · 2
7 Dec 12 Dec 18 Dec 22 Dec 25 Dec 26 Dec 30 Dec 3 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
43km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,936 ha in 2016, 10,812 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,206 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 10% of the area of London (162 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
    16,310 ha reached on 7 Dec
    1.8 %

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)
7 Dec 33.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Dec 33.2 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Dec 32.7 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Dec 33.7 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Dec 34.6 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Dec 35.2 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Dec 34.1 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Dec 35.0 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Dec 35.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Dec 34.2 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Dec 33.8 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Dec 33.4 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Dec 33.0 °C 18 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Dec 34.5 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Dec 34.3 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Dec 34.6 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Dec 34.9 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Dec 35.0 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Dec 35.4 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Dec 33.5 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Dec 33.1 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Dec 32.5 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Dec 33.7 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Dec 34.6 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Dec 34.9 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Jan 35.1 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Jan 32.8 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Jan 32.4 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Jan 32.7 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Jan 32.1 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Jan 32.8 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Jan after 34.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Jan after 34.6 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Jan after 33.8 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Jan after 34.4 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Jan after 32.8 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Jan after 31.6 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Jan after 33.0 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Jan after 34.3 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Jan after 36.5 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jan after 37.7 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Nov 2019
After · 13 Jan 2020

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 · 695Every 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 7 December 2019 to 6 January 2020 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 December 2019 to 31 December 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 16,201 hectares (162.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vokouma (16,310 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 December 2019 to 31 December 2019. 695 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.