Yalinga fire, 31 December 2025 Yalinga, Ouandja Kotto
The fire started on 31 December 2025 in Yalinga, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,971 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 83th largest in Haute-Kotto since 2016 (of 372 with a page). Number 36 in Central African Republic in 2025, of 144.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 15,971ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 31 Dec 2025 – 20 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 31 Dec
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 366
- in a single hotspot: 71 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 123MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 755 ha in 2016, 1,215 ha in 2017, 4,471 ha in 2018, 5 ha in 2019, 2,047 ha in 2020, 1,003 ha in 2021, 11,101 ha in 2022, 3,612 ha in 2023, 3,833 ha in 2024, 3,634 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,001 ha that had burned before.
- 2,047 ha Ouandja Kotto fire, January 2020 7,002 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,117 ha Ouandja Kotto fire, December 2017 17,150 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 951 ha Ouandja Kotto fire, January 2024 6,154 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 631 ha Ouandja Kotto fire, January 2022 14,601 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
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 started11,534 ha reached on 31 Dec0.3 %
-
4,534 ha reached on 31 Dec0.8 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Dec | 34.7 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 1 Jan | 35.4 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 2 Jan | 36.3 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 3 Jan | 36.5 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 4 Jan | 36.5 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 5 Jan | 36.5 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 6 Jan | 36.1 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 7 Jan | 35.9 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 8 Jan | 36.6 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 9 Jan | 36.5 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 10 Jan | 35.1 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 11 Jan | 35.1 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 12 Jan | 35.6 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 13 Jan | 35.5 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 14 Jan | 34.8 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 15 Jan | 34.9 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 16 Jan | 34.6 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 17 Jan | 35.2 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 18 Jan | 35.8 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 19 Jan | 36.3 °C | 12 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 20 Jan | 36.2 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 21 Jan after | 37.1 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 22 Jan after | 37.3 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 23 Jan after | 36.4 °C | 20 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Jan after | 37.6 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 25 Jan after | 38.6 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 26 Jan after | 38.5 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 27 Jan after | 38.2 °C | 12 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 28 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 29 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 30 Jan after | 37.2 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 15 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 366Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,150 haOuandja Kotto25 December 2017 · 15 days · 16 km away
- 17,168 haYalinga20 February 2026 · 18 days · 19 km away
- 14,601 haOuandja KottoJanuary 2022 · 31 days · 19 km away
- 13,520 haYalinga19 February 2026 · 16 days · 26 km away
- 21,689 haOuandja Kotto18 December 2021 · 25 days · 30 km away
- 27,703 haOuandja Kotto16 December 2017 · 29 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Yalinga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 December 2025 to 20 January 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 January 2026 to 19 January 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,971 hectares (159.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yalinga (11,534 ha, 0.3 %); Ouandja Kotto (4,534 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 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
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.
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
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 6 January 2026 to 19 January 2026. 366 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.
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.