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Yalinga fire, 22 December 2025 Yalinga, Djema

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2026, 00:07 UTC

The fire started on 22 December 2025 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,503 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 245th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 103 in Central African Republic in 2025, of 144.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yalinga · 2024Yalinga · 2018Yalinga · 2025Yalinga · 2017

Burnt area
6,503ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
22 Dec 2025 – 9 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
2
sub-prefectures
Started on
22 Dec
2025
Heat detections
180
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
90MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Dec9 Jan
9 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

22 Dec 2025 · 72 MW · 13 25 Dec 2025 · 99 MW · 8 26 Dec 2025 · 33 MW · 6 27 Dec 2025 · 195 MW · 21 29 Dec 2025 · 314 MW · 17 30 Dec 2025 · 105 MW · 17 31 Dec 2025 · 154 MW · 25 1 Jan 2026 · 112 MW · 18 2 Jan 2026 · 111 MW · 20 3 Jan 2026 · 16 MW · 8 4 Jan 2026 · 8 MW · 2 6 Jan 2026 · 59 MW · 9 7 Jan 2026 · 31 MW · 5 8 Jan 2026 · 42 MW · 8 9 Jan 2026 · 3 MW · 3
22 Dec 27 Dec 29 Dec 31 Dec 3 Jan 7 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
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,278 ha in 2016, 653 ha in 2017, 520 ha in 2018, 764 ha in 2019, 410 ha in 2020, 272 ha in 2021, 71 ha in 2022, 346 ha in 2023, 700 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,314 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.1% of the area of London (65 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
    6,224 ha reached on 22 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Djema
    329 ha reached on 25 Dec
    0.0 %

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)
22 Dec 33.9 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Dec 32.9 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Dec 33.7 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Dec 35.2 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Dec 34.7 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Dec 34.5 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Dec 33.6 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Dec 32.9 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec 32.9 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
31 Dec 32.6 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Jan 33.4 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Jan 34.6 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Jan 34.4 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Jan 34.2 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Jan 34.1 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Jan 33.6 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Jan 33.6 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Jan 34.5 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Jan 34.2 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Jan after 32.8 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Jan after 33.1 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Jan after 33.6 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Jan after 32.9 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Jan after 32.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Jan after 32.2 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Jan after 31.9 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Jan after 33.5 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jan after 33.9 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jan after 34.4 °C 13 % 37 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 · 15 Dec 2025
After · 16 Jan 2026

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 5 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak58 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM1096 µg/m³
Optical depth0.72
202122232425262728293031123456789101112
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 · 180Every 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 December 2025 to 9 January 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 December 2025 to 3 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,503 hectares (65.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yalinga (6,224 ha, 0.2 %); Djema (329 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % 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

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 29 December 2025 to 3 January 2026. 180 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.