How long did the Yalinga fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 January 2018 to 7 February 2018 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 January 2018 to 31 January 2018.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 29,592 hectares (295.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Yalinga (29,740 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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 · 2018-01-13 → 2018-02-07

Yalinga fire, 13 January 2018 Yalinga

Out · last detection 7 Feb 2018, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 13 January 2018 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 29,592 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 15 in Central African Republic in 2018, of 81.

Burnt area: 29,592ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 26days; 13 Jan 2018 – 7 Feb 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 13 Jan; 2018
Heat detections: 1,400; in a single hotspot: 146 MW
Danger at start: 50; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 10.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 7 Feb 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jan7 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

44km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 17 Feb.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,033 ha in 2016, 6,389 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,589 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Yalinga where it started

29,740 ha reached on 13 Jan

0.7 %

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)
13 Jan	36.6 °C	12 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
14 Jan	35.8 °C	13 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
15 Jan	34.0 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
16 Jan	34.8 °C	12 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
17 Jan	35.0 °C	10 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
18 Jan	35.0 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
19 Jan	35.0 °C	12 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
20 Jan	35.1 °C	11 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
21 Jan	35.5 °C	11 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
22 Jan	36.7 °C	10 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
23 Jan	36.1 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
24 Jan	34.4 °C	10 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
25 Jan	35.1 °C	10 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
26 Jan	34.6 °C	11 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
27 Jan	35.1 °C	13 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
28 Jan	35.3 °C	11 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
29 Jan	35.3 °C	10 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
30 Jan	35.1 °C	10 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
31 Jan	34.7 °C	11 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
1 Feb	35.4 °C	10 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
2 Feb	36.4 °C	10 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
3 Feb	37.0 °C	12 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
4 Feb	36.9 °C	12 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
5 Feb	38.1 °C	11 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
6 Feb	39.0 °C	11 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
7 Feb	39.7 °C	10 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
8 Feb after	40.0 °C	10 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
9 Feb after	39.1 °C	11 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
10 Feb after	38.0 °C	13 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
11 Feb after	37.1 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
12 Feb after	36.6 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
13 Feb after	36.4 °C	25 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
14 Feb after	37.4 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
15 Feb after	36.9 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
16 Feb after	37.0 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
17 Feb after	33.3 °C	38 %	30 km/h	1.4 mm	High 23

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Jan 2018

After · 14 Feb 2018

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.

Detections table · 1,400Every 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 Yalinga fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 January 2018 to 7 February 2018 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 January 2018 to 31 January 2018.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 29,592 hectares (295.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Yalinga (29,740 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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 ↗

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.

Where it burned