Yalinga fire, 10 January 2023 Yalinga, Djema
The fire started on 10 January 2023 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 96,833 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). The largest in Central African Republic in 2023, of 53.
- Burnt area
- 96,833ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 10 Jan 2023 – 5 Feb 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 10 Jan
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 5,901
- in a single hotspot: 412 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 51.2GW
- sum of detected power
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 68,809 ha in 2016, 10,448 ha in 2017, 42,638 ha in 2018, 45,861 ha in 2019, 110,424 ha in 2020, 12,414 ha in 2021, 23,799 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 79,796 ha that had burned before.
- 11,822 ha Djema fire, January 2020 307,099 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,730 ha Yalinga fire, January 2021 207,292 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,890 ha Yalinga fire, January 2020 353,408 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 134 ha Yalinga fire, January 2017 238,204 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Yalinga where it started74,588 ha reached on 10 Jan1.8 %
-
22,751 ha reached on 11 Jan0.6 %
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 | 34.7 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 14 Jan | 34.9 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 15 Jan | 34.5 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 16 Jan | 35.4 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 17 Jan | 35.4 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 18 Jan | 35.5 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 19 Jan | 36.2 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Jan | 36.9 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 21 Jan | 37.2 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 22 Jan | 36.6 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 23 Jan | 35.8 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Jan | 37.3 °C | 8 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 25 Jan | 35.7 °C | 14 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Jan | 36.6 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 27 Jan | 37.8 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 28 Jan | 36.7 °C | 10 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 29 Jan | 37.6 °C | 8 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 30 Jan | 36.2 °C | 13 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 31 Jan | 37.0 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 1 Feb | 37.3 °C | 8 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 2 Feb | 35.5 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 3 Feb | 35.6 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 4 Feb | 36.8 °C | 7 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 5 Feb | 37.5 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 6 Feb after | 38.5 °C | 7 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 7 Feb after | 36.0 °C | 7 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 8 Feb after | 35.5 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 9 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 8 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 30 January 2023 the air beside the fire reached 244 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 104: 7.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 5,901Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Yalinga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 January 2023 to 5 February 2023 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 January 2023 to 30 January 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 96,833 hectares (968.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yalinga (74,588 ha, 1.8 %); Djema (22,751 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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
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
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.