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Yalinga fire, 1 January 2023 Yalinga

Out · last detection 20 Jan 2023, 11:52 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2023 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,977 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 72th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 7 in Central African Republic in 2023, of 53.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yalinga · 2020Yalinga · 2018Yalinga · 2017Yalinga · 2020

Burnt area
17,977ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
1 Jan 2023 – 20 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
1 Jan
2023
Heat detections
1,041
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
334MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan20 Jan
20 Jan 2023

How it evolved, day by day

1 Jan 2023 · 1,330 MW · 86 2 Jan 2023 · 365 MW · 53 3 Jan 2023 · 550 MW · 55 4 Jan 2023 · 289 MW · 55 5 Jan 2023 · 199 MW · 59 6 Jan 2023 · 115 MW · 51 7 Jan 2023 · 84 MW · 21 8 Jan 2023 · 164 MW · 49 9 Jan 2023 · 844 MW · 67 10 Jan 2023 · 943 MW · 134 11 Jan 2023 · 720 MW · 168 12 Jan 2023 · 217 MW · 63 13 Jan 2023 · 125 MW · 45 14 Jan 2023 · 176 MW · 27 15 Jan 2023 · 52 MW · 12 16 Jan 2023 · 151 MW · 20 17 Jan 2023 · 159 MW · 43 18 Jan 2023 · 45 MW · 16 19 Jan 2023 · 143 MW · 13 20 Jan 2023 · 16 MW · 4
1 Jan 4 Jan 7 Jan 10 Jan 13 Jan 16 Jan 19 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

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,880 ha in 2016, 5,539 ha in 2017, 6,388 ha in 2018, 2,122 ha in 2019, 8,704 ha in 2020, 2,152 ha in 2021, 1,341 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,834 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 11% of the area of London (180 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
    18,108 ha reached on 1 Jan
    0.4 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
1 Jan 33.0 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Jan 33.0 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Jan 32.8 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Jan 32.7 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Jan 33.0 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Jan 33.0 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Jan 33.0 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
8 Jan 33.5 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Jan 34.0 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Jan 33.2 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Jan 33.0 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Jan 33.0 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Jan 33.2 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Jan 33.5 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Jan 33.4 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Jan 33.7 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jan 33.9 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Jan 33.9 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Jan 34.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Jan 35.5 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Jan after 35.7 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
22 Jan after 35.5 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Jan after 34.8 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Jan after 35.7 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Jan after 35.4 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Jan after 36.0 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
27 Jan after 36.5 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
28 Jan after 36.7 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 Jan after 36.6 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Jan after 36.6 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Dec 2022
After · 27 Jan 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 30 December 2022 the air beside the fire reached 79 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak79 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10114 µg/m³
Optical depth1.12
30311234567891011121314151617181920212223
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 1,041Every 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 1 January 2023 to 20 January 2023 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 January 2023 to 14 January 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 17,977 hectares (179.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yalinga (18,108 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 January 2023 to 14 January 2023. 1,041 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 2025, 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.