Aley fire, October 2020 Aley
The fire started on 9 October 2020 in Aley, Lebanon, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 144 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 7 in Lebanon in 2020, of 9.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 144ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 9 Oct 2020 – 9 Oct 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 9 Oct
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 10
- in a single hotspot: 18 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 63MW
- sum of detected power
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 4 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.
What happened to each town
-
Aley where it started144 ha reached on 9 Oct0.6 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Other natural land74 %
- Mixed forest14 %
- Coniferous forest11 %
- Artificial surfaces1.4 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Oct | 33.0 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Oct after | 30.1 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Oct after | 27.5 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Oct after | 28.5 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 13 Oct after | 26.1 °C | 37 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Oct after | 25.9 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 15 Oct after | 26.5 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Oct after | 26.6 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 17 Oct after | 27.3 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Oct after | 28.7 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Oct after | 29.2 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
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.
Detections table · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aley fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 9 October 2020 and 9 October 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 144 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Aley (144 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Lebanon (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
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
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 ADM2 (Public Domain). 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.