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Yalinga fire, 22 January 2023 Rafaï, Yalinga, Djema

Out · last detection 18 Feb 2023, 23:44 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2023 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 28 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 66,536 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 28th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 2 in Central African Republic in 2023, of 53.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yalinga · 2017Yalinga · 2020Djema · 2020Yalinga · 2020

Burnt area
66,536ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
28days
22 Jan 2023 – 18 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
3
sub-prefectures
Started on
22 Jan
2023
Heat detections
2,684
in a single hotspot: 412 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan18 Feb
18 Feb 2023

How it evolved, day by day

22 Jan 2023 · 385 MW · 51 23 Jan 2023 · 413 MW · 56 24 Jan 2023 · 941 MW · 51 25 Jan 2023 · 325 MW · 34 26 Jan 2023 · 237 MW · 32 27 Jan 2023 · 1,108 MW · 136 28 Jan 2023 · 384 MW · 82 29 Jan 2023 · 2,573 MW · 119 30 Jan 2023 · 1,148 MW · 81 31 Jan 2023 · 243 MW · 42 1 Feb 2023 · 859 MW · 60 2 Feb 2023 · 467 MW · 157 3 Feb 2023 · 700 MW · 109 4 Feb 2023 · 2,341 MW · 207 5 Feb 2023 · 2,893 MW · 175 6 Feb 2023 · 11,381 MW · 404 7 Feb 2023 · 2,936 MW · 326 8 Feb 2023 · 598 MW · 89 9 Feb 2023 · 358 MW · 83 10 Feb 2023 · 695 MW · 38 11 Feb 2023 · 825 MW · 92 12 Feb 2023 · 218 MW · 56 13 Feb 2023 · 174 MW · 29 14 Feb 2023 · 209 MW · 44 15 Feb 2023 · 104 MW · 23 16 Feb 2023 · 275 MW · 29 17 Feb 2023 · 298 MW · 45 18 Feb 2023 · 87 MW · 34
22 Jan 26 Jan 30 Jan 3 Feb 6 Feb 7 Feb 11 Feb 15 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
45km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 28,602 ha in 2016, 38,195 ha in 2017, 31,793 ha in 2018, 29,735 ha in 2019, 78,100 ha in 2020, 16,325 ha in 2021, 10,051 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 66,002 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 42% of the area of London (665 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. Rafaï
    38,463 ha reached on 27 Jan
    1.4 %
  2. Yalinga where it started
    19,082 ha reached on 22 Jan
    0.5 %
  3. Djema
    9,445 ha reached on 22 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
29 Jan 37.4 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Jan 35.9 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Jan 37.0 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Feb 37.0 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Feb 35.7 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Feb 35.7 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Feb 37.0 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Feb 37.7 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Feb 38.2 °C 7 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Feb 36.3 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Feb 35.8 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
9 Feb 36.5 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Feb 37.3 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Feb 38.2 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Feb 38.5 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Feb 37.3 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Feb 37.0 °C 11 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Feb 37.2 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
16 Feb 34.2 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
17 Feb 34.1 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
18 Feb 34.6 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
19 Feb after 36.7 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Feb after 37.4 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Feb after 37.7 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
22 Feb after 38.3 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
23 Feb after 36.4 °C 14 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Feb after 37.5 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Feb after 36.9 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Feb after 36.5 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Feb after 36.8 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Feb after 37.3 °C 17 % 28 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.

Before · 15 Jan 2023
After · 25 Feb 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 January 2023 the air beside the fire reached 196 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 92: 6.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak196 µg/m³
Days over the guideline25 days
PM10280 µg/m³
Optical depth1.29
202122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021
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 · 2,684Every 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 22 January 2023 to 18 February 2023 (28 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 January 2023 to 18 February 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 66,536 hectares (665.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Rafaï (38,463 ha, 1.4 %); Yalinga (19,082 ha, 0.5 %); Djema (9,445 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 January 2023 to 18 February 2023. 2,684 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.