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Yalinga fire, 20 December 2018 Yalinga

Out · last detection 15 Jan 2019, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 20 December 2018 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 33,071 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 51th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 13 in Central African Republic in 2018, of 81.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yalinga · 2016Yalinga · 2016Yalinga · 2016Yalinga · 2026

Burnt area
33,071ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
20 Dec 2018 – 14 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
20 Dec
2018
Heat detections
1,331
in a single hotspot: 179 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
449MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Dec14 Jan
15 Jan 2019

How it evolved, day by day

20 Dec 2018 · 28 MW · 5 21 Dec 2018 · 67 MW · 21 22 Dec 2018 · 52 MW · 19 23 Dec 2018 · 582 MW · 37 24 Dec 2018 · 336 MW · 56 25 Dec 2018 · 134 MW · 18 26 Dec 2018 · 548 MW · 83 27 Dec 2018 · 328 MW · 33 28 Dec 2018 · 312 MW · 49 29 Dec 2018 · 941 MW · 84 30 Dec 2018 · 2,508 MW · 178 31 Dec 2018 · 2,530 MW · 197 1 Jan 2019 · 121 MW · 70 2 Jan 2019 · 800 MW · 112 3 Jan 2019 · 1,539 MW · 92 4 Jan 2019 · 62 MW · 29 5 Jan 2019 · 299 MW · 50 6 Jan 2019 · 154 MW · 68 7 Jan 2019 · 73 MW · 12 8 Jan 2019 · 98 MW · 14 9 Jan 2019 · 260 MW · 32 10 Jan 2019 · 80 MW · 18 11 Jan 2019 · 89 MW · 31 12 Jan 2019 · 40 MW · 7 13 Jan 2019 · 31 MW · 4 14 Jan 2019 · 94 MW · 10 15 Jan 2019 · 4 MW · 2
20 Dec 24 Dec 28 Dec 31 Dec 1 Jan 5 Jan 9 Jan 13 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
40km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 30,444 ha in 2016, 2,611 ha in 2017, 1,168 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,742 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 21% of the area of London (331 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
    33,252 ha reached on 20 Dec
    0.8 %

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)
20 Dec 33.6 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Dec 33.7 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Dec 33.4 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Dec 33.7 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Dec 33.8 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Dec 34.5 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Dec 35.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Dec 35.9 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Dec 34.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Dec 34.8 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Dec 35.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Dec 34.4 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Jan 34.8 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Jan 36.2 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Jan 35.5 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Jan 36.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Jan 36.5 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Jan 35.5 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Jan 34.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Jan 34.6 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Jan 34.7 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Jan 35.5 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Jan 37.0 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Jan 37.4 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Jan 37.3 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Jan 33.7 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jan after 34.5 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jan after 35.1 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Jan after 35.2 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Jan after 35.4 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Jan after 36.1 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Jan after 36.7 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Jan after 37.0 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Jan after 36.9 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jan after 36.9 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Jan after 37.6 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Dec 2018
After · 21 Jan 2019

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 · 1,331Every 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 20 December 2018 to 14 January 2019 (26 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 December 2018 to 7 January 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 33,071 hectares (330.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yalinga (33,252 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 December 2018 to 7 January 2019. 1,331 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.