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Yéngou fire, 26 December 2022 Yéngou

Out · last detection 21 Jan 2023, 00:28 UTC

The fire started on 26 December 2022 in Yéngou, Central African Republic, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,647 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Ouaka since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 15 in Central African Republic in 2022, of 98.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yéngou · 2016Yéngou · 2018Vassako · 2021Yéngou · 2024

Burnt area
27,647ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
26 Dec 2022 – 21 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
26 Dec
2022
Heat detections
875
in a single hotspot: 124 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
285MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Dec21 Jan
21 Jan 2023

How it evolved, day by day

26 Dec 2022 · 358 MW · 45 27 Dec 2022 · 40 MW · 8 28 Dec 2022 · 12 MW · 3 29 Dec 2022 · 69 MW · 5 30 Dec 2022 · 142 MW · 14 1 Jan 2023 · 1 MW · 2 2 Jan 2023 · 11 MW · 5 3 Jan 2023 · 115 MW · 15 4 Jan 2023 · 1,814 MW · 104 5 Jan 2023 · 1,304 MW · 196 6 Jan 2023 · 330 MW · 118 7 Jan 2023 · 238 MW · 72 8 Jan 2023 · 167 MW · 39 9 Jan 2023 · 221 MW · 42 10 Jan 2023 · 33 MW · 5 11 Jan 2023 · 20 MW · 13 12 Jan 2023 · 1,325 MW · 81 13 Jan 2023 · 198 MW · 27 14 Jan 2023 · 669 MW · 33 15 Jan 2023 · 213 MW · 22 16 Jan 2023 · 41 MW · 10 17 Jan 2023 · 3 MW · 2 18 Jan 2023 · 15 MW · 3 19 Jan 2023 · 71 MW · 4 20 Jan 2023 · 7 MW · 4 21 Jan 2023 · 2 MW · 3
26 Dec 30 Dec 4 Jan 8 Jan 12 Jan 16 Jan 20 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
41km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 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: 10,416 ha in 2016, 7,766 ha in 2017, 9,439 ha in 2018, 14,649 ha in 2019, 6,435 ha in 2020, 1,666 ha in 2021, 3,544 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 24,207 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 17% of the area of London (276 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. Yéngou where it started
    27,864 ha reached on 26 Dec
    2.5 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
26 Dec 34.5 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Dec 33.6 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Dec 34.1 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Dec 34.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Dec 34.3 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Dec 34.9 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Jan 35.0 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Jan 35.9 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Jan 36.2 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Jan 36.7 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Jan 36.7 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Jan 36.6 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Jan 36.7 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Jan 36.6 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Jan 36.0 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Jan 36.0 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Jan 35.1 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Jan 34.8 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Jan 34.8 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Jan 35.4 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Jan 35.2 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Jan 36.0 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Jan 36.5 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jan 35.4 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Jan 36.5 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Jan 37.4 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Jan 36.7 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Jan after 37.3 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Jan after 36.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Jan after 37.8 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Jan after 36.4 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Jan after 37.4 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jan after 38.3 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
28 Jan after 36.6 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Jan after 36.7 °C 13 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Jan after 37.1 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Jan after 36.9 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Dec 2022
After · 28 Jan 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.

Detections table · 875Every 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 Yéngou fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 December 2022 to 21 January 2023 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 January 2023 to 17 January 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 27,647 hectares (276.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yéngou (27,864 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 January 2023 to 17 January 2023. 875 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 2020, 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.