We present the temperature and excitation power density dependence of the photoluminescence from carbon-doped GaAs epilayers grown on GaAs (311)A substrate by atmospheric pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. The measured temperature dependence of the PL peak energy is well expressed by an empirical formula proposed by Varshni. The thermal quenching mechanism of the intensity of 16 K luminescence peak at 1.480 eV is described with the dominant activation energy of 27$pm$2 meV. The activation energy shows an evidence that the emission band involves the carbon acceptor in the recombination process.