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CF · Central African Republic · →

Yalinga fire, 3 January 2016 Yalinga

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2016, 23:38 UTC

The fire started on 3 January 2016 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,065 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 179th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 81 in Central African Republic in 2016, of 165.

Burnt area
8,065ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
3 Jan 2016 – 10 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
3 Jan
2016
Heat detections
206
in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jan10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

3456789

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
42km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Yalinga where it started
    8,109 ha reached on 3 Jan
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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 Rain Danger (FWI)
3 Jan 33.1 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Jan 35.0 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Jan 35.7 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Jan 36.3 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jan 36.5 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Jan 37.7 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Jan 37.1 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Jan 35.8 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Jan after 35.3 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Jan after 35.7 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jan after 36.2 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Jan after 35.7 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Jan after 35.6 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Jan after 36.0 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Jan after 36.7 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jan after 36.6 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Jan after 35.7 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
20 Jan after 35.1 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Dec 2015
After · 17 Jan 2016

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 · 206Every 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 Yalinga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 January 2016 and 10 January 2016: 8 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,065 hectares (80.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yalinga (8,109 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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

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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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.