How long did the Yalinga fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 January 2026 to 23 January 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 January 2026 to 22 January 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,270 hectares (132.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouandja Kotto (7,065 ha, 1.2 %); Yalinga (6,283 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 · 2026-01-06 → 2026-01-23

Yalinga fire, 6 January 2026 Ouandja Kotto, Yalinga

Out · last detection 23 Jan 2026, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 6 January 2026 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,270 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 100th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 31 in Central African Republic in 2026, of 147.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouandja Kotto · 2017 Ouandja Kotto · 2021 Ouandja Kotto · 2017 Ouandja Kotto · 2026

Burnt area: 13,270ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 6 Jan 2026 – 23 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; sub-prefectures
Started on: 6 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 358; in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start: 56; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 178MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jan23 Jan

Play back 23 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

6 Jan 9 Jan 13 Jan 17 Jan 20 Jan 23 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

37°high

43km/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

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,278 ha in 2016, 6,435 ha in 2017, 2,368 ha in 2018, 650 ha in 2019, 6,955 ha in 2020, 2,622 ha in 2021, 7,077 ha in 2022, 2,354 ha in 2023, 5,453 ha in 2024, 1,580 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,601 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.4% of the area of London (133 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

Ouandja Kotto

7,065 ha reached on 8 Jan

1.2 %
Yalinga where it started

6,283 ha reached on 6 Jan

0.2 %

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	Danger (FWI)
6 Jan	35.9 °C	11 %	35 km/h	Extreme 56
7 Jan	35.7 °C	13 %	35 km/h	Extreme 56
8 Jan	36.5 °C	12 %	32 km/h	Extreme 54
9 Jan	36.4 °C	16 %	33 km/h	Extreme 54
10 Jan	35.0 °C	17 %	35 km/h	Extreme 53
11 Jan	35.1 °C	15 %	31 km/h	Very high 50
12 Jan	35.6 °C	14 %	30 km/h	Extreme 52
13 Jan	35.4 °C	15 %	42 km/h	Extreme 57
14 Jan	34.7 °C	15 %	43 km/h	Extreme 60
15 Jan	34.7 °C	13 %	39 km/h	Extreme 57
16 Jan	34.5 °C	15 %	37 km/h	Extreme 55
17 Jan	35.2 °C	13 %	31 km/h	Extreme 52
18 Jan	35.8 °C	11 %	32 km/h	Extreme 52
19 Jan	36.3 °C	12 %	33 km/h	Extreme 53
20 Jan	36.1 °C	14 %	32 km/h	Extreme 52
21 Jan	37.0 °C	15 %	35 km/h	Extreme 56
22 Jan	37.2 °C	17 %	27 km/h	Extreme 50
23 Jan	36.5 °C	19 %	24 km/h	Very high 46
24 Jan after	37.8 °C	18 %	30 km/h	Extreme 50
25 Jan after	38.6 °C	10 %	35 km/h	Extreme 56
26 Jan after	38.4 °C	9 %	36 km/h	Extreme 57
27 Jan after	38.2 °C	12 %	27 km/h	Extreme 52
28 Jan after	36.2 °C	13 %	31 km/h	Extreme 55
29 Jan after	35.8 °C	11 %	37 km/h	Extreme 59
30 Jan after	37.0 °C	11 %	32 km/h	Extreme 56
31 Jan after	36.7 °C	11 %	22 km/h	Extreme 56
1 Feb after	36.1 °C	13 %	22 km/h	Extreme 50
2 Feb after	37.0 °C	13 %	26 km/h	Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Dec 2025

After · 30 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 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak73 µg/m³

Days over the guideline22 days

PM10119 µg/m³

Optical depth0.75

WHO 15

567891011121314151617181920212223242526

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 · 358Every 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 6 January 2026 to 23 January 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 January 2026 to 22 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 13,270 hectares (132.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouandja Kotto (7,065 ha, 1.2 %); Yalinga (6,283 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Start date: 7 January 2026 → 6 January 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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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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 9 January 2026 to 22 January 2026. 358 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.

Where it burned