How long did the Yalinga fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 December 2025 to 18 January 2026 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 December 2025 to 15 January 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,802 hectares (138.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Yalinga (13,555 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 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.

CF · Central African Republic · 2025-12-21 → 2026-01-18

Yalinga fire, 21 December 2025 Yalinga

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2026, 11:44 UTC

The fire started on 21 December 2025 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,802 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 96th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 40 in Central African Republic in 2025, of 145.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yalinga · 2021 Yalinga · 2016 Al Radoum · 2021 Yalinga · 2022

Burnt area: 13,802ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 29days; 21 Dec 2025 – 18 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 21 Dec; 2025
Heat detections: 420; in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 122MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Dec18 Jan

Play back 18 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

21 Dec 27 Dec 31 Dec 4 Jan 8 Jan 12 Jan 17 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

35°high

44km/h · peak gust

9%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 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: 3,868 ha in 2016, 3,211 ha in 2017, 1,770 ha in 2018, 2,320 ha in 2019, 3,134 ha in 2020, 6,917 ha in 2021, 4,669 ha in 2022, 1,554 ha in 2023, 2,306 ha in 2024, 558 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,811 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.7% of the area of London (138 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

Yalinga where it started

13,555 ha reached on 21 Dec

0.3 %

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	Danger (FWI)
21 Dec	33.1 °C	14 %	32 km/h	Very high 42
22 Dec	33.6 °C	14 %	28 km/h	Very high 43
23 Dec	33.0 °C	12 %	29 km/h	Very high 43
24 Dec	33.4 °C	13 %	28 km/h	Very high 42
25 Dec	34.8 °C	11 %	35 km/h	Very high 47
26 Dec	34.4 °C	13 %	35 km/h	Very high 49
27 Dec	34.1 °C	14 %	32 km/h	Very high 48
28 Dec	33.2 °C	10 %	35 km/h	Extreme 50
29 Dec	32.7 °C	9 %	28 km/h	Very high 46
30 Dec	32.8 °C	12 %	42 km/h	Extreme 55
31 Dec	32.2 °C	11 %	34 km/h	Extreme 50
1 Jan	33.1 °C	9 %	32 km/h	Very high 48
2 Jan	34.4 °C	11 %	29 km/h	Very high 50
3 Jan	34.1 °C	12 %	41 km/h	Extreme 56
4 Jan	33.9 °C	12 %	40 km/h	Extreme 56
5 Jan	33.7 °C	13 %	40 km/h	Extreme 56
6 Jan	33.3 °C	12 %	37 km/h	Extreme 54
7 Jan	33.4 °C	13 %	36 km/h	Extreme 53
8 Jan	34.2 °C	14 %	36 km/h	Extreme 53
9 Jan	34.0 °C	17 %	42 km/h	Extreme 55
10 Jan	32.4 °C	19 %	40 km/h	Extreme 52
11 Jan	32.6 °C	17 %	34 km/h	Very high 48
12 Jan	33.3 °C	15 %	35 km/h	Very high 49
13 Jan	32.5 °C	17 %	44 km/h	Extreme 54
14 Jan	31.6 °C	16 %	44 km/h	Extreme 56
15 Jan	31.7 °C	14 %	40 km/h	Extreme 54
16 Jan	31.4 °C	18 %	38 km/h	Extreme 51
17 Jan	33.2 °C	14 %	32 km/h	Very high 47
18 Jan	33.5 °C	12 %	32 km/h	Very high 48
19 Jan after	34.0 °C	13 %	36 km/h	Extreme 50
20 Jan after	34.0 °C	14 %	35 km/h	Very high 49
21 Jan after	35.1 °C	16 %	36 km/h	Extreme 50
22 Jan after	36.1 °C	16 %	28 km/h	Very high 47
23 Jan after	35.8 °C	17 %	26 km/h	Very high 46
24 Jan after	36.9 °C	15 %	32 km/h	Very high 49
25 Jan after	36.5 °C	11 %	42 km/h	Extreme 56
26 Jan after	36.5 °C	10 %	34 km/h	Extreme 53
27 Jan after	36.7 °C	12 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
28 Jan after	34.5 °C	13 %	39 km/h	Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Dec 2025

After · 25 Jan 2026

Before After

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 11 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak50 µg/m³

Days over the guideline30 days

PM10135 µg/m³

Optical depth0.59

WHO 15

19202122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021

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 · 420Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

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 21 December 2025 to 18 January 2026 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 December 2025 to 15 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,802 hectares (138.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Yalinga (13,555 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 December 2025 to 15 January 2026. 420 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.

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.

Where it burned