How long did the Vokouma fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 December 2025 to 21 January 2026 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 January 2026 to 14 January 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,257 hectares (62.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vokouma (5,019 ha, 0.6 %); Ouadda (1,275 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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 · 2025-12-28 → 2026-01-21

Vokouma fire, 28 December 2025 Vokouma, Ouadda

Out · last detection 21 Jan 2026, 12:28 UTC

The fire started on 28 December 2025 in Vokouma, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,257 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 45th largest in Vakaga since 2016 (of 72 with a page). Number 111 in Central African Republic in 2025, of 144.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Vokouma · 2025 Ouadda · 2026 Ouadda · 2025

Burnt area: 6,257ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 25days; 28 Dec 2025 – 21 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; sub-prefectures
Started on: 28 Dec; 2025
Heat detections: 166; in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start: 49; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 44MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Dec21 Jan

Play back 21 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

28 Dec 5 Jan 8 Jan 11 Jan 14 Jan 18 Jan 21 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

36°high

42km/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

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,339 ha in 2016, 753 ha in 2017, 1,885 ha in 2020, 2,652 ha in 2021, 1,217 ha in 2023, 2,176 ha in 2024, 781 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,066 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4% of the area of London (63 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

5,019 ha reached on 28 Dec

0.6 %
Ouadda

1,275 ha reached on 5 Jan

0.1 %

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)
28 Dec	34.3 °C	10 %	30 km/h	Very high 49
29 Dec	33.5 °C	8 %	31 km/h	Very high 49
30 Dec	33.7 °C	12 %	36 km/h	Extreme 52
31 Dec	33.6 °C	10 %	30 km/h	Extreme 50
1 Jan	34.2 °C	10 %	29 km/h	Very high 48
2 Jan	35.1 °C	8 %	26 km/h	Very high 49
3 Jan	35.1 °C	12 %	40 km/h	Extreme 57
4 Jan	35.0 °C	10 %	34 km/h	Extreme 54
5 Jan	34.8 °C	10 %	40 km/h	Extreme 57
6 Jan	34.7 °C	10 %	35 km/h	Extreme 55
7 Jan	34.8 °C	11 %	33 km/h	Extreme 54
8 Jan	34.8 °C	12 %	29 km/h	Extreme 52
9 Jan	35.5 °C	13 %	33 km/h	Extreme 54
10 Jan	33.7 °C	16 %	35 km/h	Extreme 53
11 Jan	33.2 °C	15 %	30 km/h	Very high 49
12 Jan	33.9 °C	15 %	32 km/h	Extreme 50
13 Jan	33.7 °C	14 %	41 km/h	Extreme 56
14 Jan	33.3 °C	14 %	42 km/h	Extreme 58
15 Jan	33.5 °C	12 %	39 km/h	Extreme 57
16 Jan	32.8 °C	14 %	36 km/h	Extreme 55
17 Jan	34.4 °C	12 %	29 km/h	Very high 50
18 Jan	34.6 °C	10 %	31 km/h	Extreme 50
19 Jan	34.8 °C	11 %	31 km/h	Extreme 51
20 Jan	34.5 °C	13 %	31 km/h	Extreme 52
21 Jan	36.0 °C	14 %	32 km/h	Extreme 52
22 Jan after	37.0 °C	14 %	31 km/h	Extreme 52
23 Jan after	36.1 °C	19 %	27 km/h	Very high 49
24 Jan after	36.6 °C	18 %	32 km/h	Extreme 50
25 Jan after	37.5 °C	11 %	38 km/h	Extreme 56
26 Jan after	37.6 °C	9 %	36 km/h	Extreme 56
27 Jan after	38.1 °C	9 %	32 km/h	Extreme 54
28 Jan after	35.6 °C	11 %	36 km/h	Extreme 57
29 Jan after	35.2 °C	10 %	37 km/h	Extreme 58
30 Jan after	35.9 °C	9 %	32 km/h	Extreme 55
31 Jan after	36.3 °C	9 %	28 km/h	Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Dec 2025

After · 28 Jan 2026

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 7 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³

Days over the guideline27 days

PM10137 µg/m³

Optical depth0.67

WHO 15

262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324

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 · 166Every 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 28 December 2025 to 21 January 2026 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 January 2026 to 14 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,257 hectares (62.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vokouma (5,019 ha, 0.6 %); Ouadda (1,275 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 2026 to 14 January 2026. 166 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