Yalinga fire, 12 January 2020 Yalinga, Rafaï
The fire started on 12 January 2020 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 114,388 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:
It is the 14th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 7 in Central African Republic in 2020, of 101.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 114,388ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 45days
- 12 Jan 2020 – 25 Feb 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 12 Jan
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 4,359
- in a single hotspot: 202 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 663MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 81,341 ha in 2016, 44,214 ha in 2017, 70,073 ha in 2018, 47,069 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 106,495 ha that had burned before.
- 37,151 ha Yalinga fire, December 2018 267,715 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 28,088 ha Yalinga fire, January 2017 45,164 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 24,214 ha Yalinga fire, January 2018 30,294 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 23,085 ha Yalinga fire, December 2016 26,580 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 16,882 ha Yalinga fire, December 2018 45,359 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,653 ha Yalinga fire, January 2016 15,020 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,382 ha Yalinga fire, January 2018 37,364 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,822 ha Yalinga fire, January 2016 15,214 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Yalinga where it started114,725 ha reached on 12 Jan2.8 %
-
166 ha reached on 12 Jan0.0 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Jan | 33.0 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 13 Jan | 34.1 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 14 Jan | 35.7 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 15 Jan | 37.5 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 16 Jan | 38.2 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Jan | 37.3 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 18 Jan | 35.8 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Jan | 34.7 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 20 Jan | 35.2 °C | 13 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 21 Jan | 35.0 °C | 12 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 22 Jan | 34.3 °C | 10 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 23 Jan | 33.1 °C | 10 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 24 Jan | 33.2 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 25 Jan | 34.0 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 26 Jan | 34.7 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 27 Jan | 35.8 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 28 Jan | 36.5 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 29 Jan | 36.5 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 30 Jan | 36.8 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 31 Jan | 35.3 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 Feb | 35.2 °C | 11 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 2 Feb | 35.4 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 3 Feb | 36.3 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 4 Feb | 36.8 °C | 11 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Feb | 35.3 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Feb | 34.4 °C | 25 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Feb | 37.4 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 8 Feb | 38.9 °C | 10 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 9 Feb | 37.3 °C | 10 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 10 Feb | 36.8 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 11 Feb | 36.1 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 12 Feb | 34.7 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 13 Feb | 36.1 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 14 Feb | 37.5 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 15 Feb | 38.1 °C | 11 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 16 Feb | 39.0 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 17 Feb | 37.3 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Feb | 36.1 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 1.1 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Feb | 37.0 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Feb | 37.3 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Feb | 37.7 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 22 Feb | 38.8 °C | 10 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 23 Feb | 36.2 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 24 Feb | 39.2 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 25 Feb | 36.9 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 26 Feb after | 36.9 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 27 Feb after | 39.0 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 28 Feb after | 39.6 °C | 8 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 29 Feb after | 39.2 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 1 Mar after | 39.1 °C | 9 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 2 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Mar after | 37.9 °C | 13 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Mar after | 38.1 °C | 18 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Mar after | 38.5 °C | 18 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Mar after | 39.1 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 4,359Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Yalinga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 January 2020 to 25 February 2020 (45 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 January 2020 to 23 February 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 114,388 hectares (1,143.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yalinga (114,725 ha, 2.8 %); Rafaï (166 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 45 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 18 January 2020 → 12 January 2020.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 January 2020 to 23 February 2020. 4,359 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.
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.