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SY · Syria ·

Al-Malikeyyeh fire, June 2019 Al-Malikeyyeh, Ya'robiyah

Out · last detection 27 Jun 2019, 10:48 UTC

The fire started on 27 June 2019 in Al-Malikeyyeh, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,197 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 15th largest in Al-Hasakeh since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 36 in Syria in 2019, of 163.

Burnt area
1,197ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
27 Jun 2019 – 27 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
2
subdistricts
Started on
27 Jun
2019
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
68
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
361MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jun27 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

27 Jun 2019 · 361 MW · 12

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

44°high
26km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (12 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. Al-Malikeyyeh where it started
    1,160 ha reached on 27 Jun
    0.9 %
  2. 36 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official 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.

What burned

  • Agricultural areas100 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.32 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.32 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 61 % of the area in Syria Very dry air: 52 % of the area in Syria

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
27 Jun 43.9 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
28 Jun after 42.9 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
29 Jun after 40.3 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
30 Jun after 38.7 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
1 Jul after 37.3 °C 14 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Jul after 39.2 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Jul after 40.0 °C 11 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Jul after 40.7 °C 12 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Jul after 41.9 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Jul after 40.2 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
7 Jul after 41.6 °C 13 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 67.7, a minimum humidity of 13% and 25 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 23.

FWI at the start 67.7
Minimum humidity 13 %
Days without rain 25
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Amuda fire, July 2019
103 ha 1 day FWI 70.9 Min. humidity 13 % 116 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
560 ha
median area
22 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 1 of 23 had it)

It was 2.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

Only 4 of its 23 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 22 of 23, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.9 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
26km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 Jun, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 1 of 23, with a median of 2.9 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jun 2019
After · 4 Jul 2019

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 · 12Every 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 Syria

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Al-Malikeyyeh fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 27 June 2019 and 27 June 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,197 hectares (12.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Al-Malikeyyeh (1,160 ha, 0.9 %); Ya'robiyah (36 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 43.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Syria (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 23. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 560 ha; 22 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 4 of its 23 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 22 of 23, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.9 mm.

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.

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: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 12 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 and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. 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 slightly from each country’s official figure.