Skip to content
worldfires
CF · Central African Republic · →

Yalinga fire, 2 January 2022 Yalinga

Out · last detection 12 Jan 2022, 11:44 UTC

The fire started on 2 January 2022 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,488 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 69th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 19 in Central African Republic in 2022, of 98.

Burnt area
18,488ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
2 Jan 2022 – 12 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
2 Jan
2022
Heat detections
636
in a single hotspot: 181 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jan12 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2367891112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,601 ha in 2016, 5,298 ha in 2017, 9,269 ha in 2018, 10,818 ha in 2019, 6,547 ha in 2020, 1,895 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,704 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Yalinga where it started
    18,624 ha reached on 2 Jan
    0.4 %

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)
2 Jan 33.4 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Jan 31.9 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Jan 31.8 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Jan 32.2 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Jan 33.6 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Jan 34.9 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jan 35.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jan 36.3 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Jan 36.1 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jan 35.8 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Jan 36.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Jan after 35.1 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jan after 34.8 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Jan after 35.3 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Jan after 34.5 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jan after 34.1 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Jan after 33.2 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Jan after 32.3 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Jan after 32.1 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Jan after 32.1 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Jan after 33.5 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Dec 2021
After · 19 Jan 2022

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 · 636Every 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 2 January 2022 to 12 January 2022 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 January 2022 to 11 January 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,488 hectares (184.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yalinga (18,624 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very high.
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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.