Wildfires in Israel in 2020
8 fires larger than 100 hectares in Israel in 2020, with 3,094 hectares burned according to their perimeters. Here is the whole year: what the official record says, when and where it burned and what the weather was like.
Only fires of 100 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the entry totals, but they are in the official yearly series.
The year in a few sentences
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According to Copernicus EFFIS, 3,549 hectares burned in Israel in 2020: 1.1 times the average of the other years from 2009 to 2025 (3,193 ha).
Copernicus EFFIS · See the data
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The worst week was 7 October to 13 October: 894 hectares burned in seven days, 25% of the year according to Copernicus EFFIS.
Copernicus EFFIS · See the data
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The largest fire was the Golan fire, which started on 26 October 2020 and burned 725 hectares: 23% of the area of the year's 8 fires with a page.
WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page
Map of the year
Copernicus EFFISMonth by month
Hectares within the perimeters by the month the fire started. Tap a month to see it on the map.
Week by week, against other years
Copernicus EFFISCumulative burned area in 2020 over the lowest and highest of each week in the record since 2006, and its average. The bars below show what burned each week. Tap the chart to see a week. The average and the band are the Copernicus EFFIS climatology for 2006–2025, which includes 2020 itself.
Every year since 2009
Copernicus EFFISHectares burned per year in the official record. Tap a year to open its yearbook.
Cite this
Copy the sentences with their source and link. WorldFires data are CC BY 4.0: credit WorldFires and the original source.
- According to Copernicus EFFIS, 3,549 hectares burned in Israel in 2020: 1.1 times the average of the other years from 2009 to 2025 (3,193 ha). - The worst week was 7 October to 13 October: 894 hectares burned in seven days, 25% of the year according to Copernicus EFFIS. - The largest fire was the Golan fire, which started on 26 October 2020 and burned 725 hectares: 23% of the area of the year's 8 fires with a page. WorldFires, “Wildfires in Israel in 2020”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/israel/2020 (accessed 8 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus EFFIS, WorldFires.
Fires of 2020, largest first · 8
Burned area in 2020 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)
According to Copernicus Land, 6,275 ha burned in 2020: rank 4 of 7 complete years (1 = the most burned). The average of those years is 7,150 ha.
The area the Sentinel-3 satellite sees burned each month, separate from the fire pages. It is the same source and the same method every year, so years can be compared with each other. It counts everything that burns, including crop and pasture burning, which is why it does not match the fire pages or the official statistics.
Where most burned in 2020
- Southern District 3,891 ha
- Northern District 1,059 ha
- Central District 1,057 ha
- Haifa 268 ha
Source: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, “Burnt Area 2018-present (raster 300 m), global, monthly – version 4”, monthly Sentinel-3 product, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34. Generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information; worldfires.org adds up, by country and region, the true area of the 300 m cells where a burn was detected. Latest month published: May 2026. Product page · Methodology
Sources and limits
Fire-page areas are satellite-measured perimeters and may differ from official statistics. The yearly and weekly record is the Copernicus EFFIS estimate. The FWI is our own calculation from ERA5 at each fire's location: it is not an official danger warning.
Perimeters: Copernicus EFFIS and GWIS (and MTBS, NIFC or NBAC in North America). Hotspots: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS). Weather: Copernicus ERA5 via Open-Meteo. How it is calculated