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Yalinga fire, 16 December 2017 Yalinga, Djema

Out · last detection 2 Jan 2018, 00:20 UTC

The fire started on 16 December 2017 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,156 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 352th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 94 in Central African Republic in 2017, of 100.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yalinga · 2020Djema · 2025

Burnt area
5,156ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
16 Dec 2017 – 1 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
2
sub-prefectures
Started on
16 Dec
2017
Heat detections
190
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
64MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Dec1 Jan
2 Jan 2018

How it evolved, day by day

16 Dec 2017 · 112 MW · 10 17 Dec 2017 · 25 MW · 7 18 Dec 2017 · 6 MW · 4 19 Dec 2017 · 96 MW · 15 20 Dec 2017 · 112 MW · 11 21 Dec 2017 · 78 MW · 12 22 Dec 2017 · 3 MW · 1 23 Dec 2017 · 24 MW · 12 26 Dec 2017 · 161 MW · 18 27 Dec 2017 · 136 MW · 22 28 Dec 2017 · 72 MW · 22 29 Dec 2017 · 3 MW · 3 30 Dec 2017 · 86 MW · 18 31 Dec 2017 · 63 MW · 14 1 Jan 2018 · 34 MW · 15 2 Jan 2018 · 7 MW · 6
16 Dec 19 Dec 22 Dec 26 Dec 27 Dec 30 Dec 2 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

37°high
46km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,073 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.3% of the area of London (52 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. Yalinga where it started
    5,096 ha reached on 16 Dec
    0.1 %
  2. Djema
    94 ha reached on 16 Dec
    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 Rain Danger (FWI)
16 Dec 34.8 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Dec 34.6 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Dec 35.2 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Dec 35.8 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Dec 35.8 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Dec 36.6 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Dec 36.5 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Dec 37.0 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Dec 36.1 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Dec 34.5 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Dec 34.2 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Dec 34.5 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Dec 36.4 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Dec 36.5 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Dec 36.1 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Dec 33.2 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Jan 31.6 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Jan after 30.9 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Jan after 31.4 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Jan after 31.9 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Jan after 31.5 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Jan after 32.3 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Jan after 32.9 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Jan after 32.9 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Jan after 32.5 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Jan after 33.5 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Jan after 34.5 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Dec 2017
After · 8 Jan 2018

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 · 190Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 December 2017 to 1 January 2018 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 December 2017 to 1 January 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,156 hectares (51.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yalinga (5,096 ha, 0.1 %); Djema (94 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 46 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 23 December 2017 to 1 January 2018. 190 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.