الفحص fire, 11 August 2021 الفحص, الناظور, الوسلاتية
The fire started on 11 August 2021 in الفحص, Tunisia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,198 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
Number 4 in Tunisia in 2021, of 37.
- Burnt area
- 2,198ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 11 Aug 2021 – 16 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- delegations
- Started on
- 11 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 147
- in a single hotspot: 232 MW
- Danger at start
- 70
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.0GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 20 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
الفحص where it started1,914 ha reached on 11 Aug2.0 %
-
268 ha reached on 12 Aug0.8 %
-
18 ha reached on 13 Aug0.0 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland45 %
- Coniferous forest32 %
- Agricultural areas14 %
- Other natural land8.1 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub1.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Aug | 45.6 °C | 4 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 12 Aug | 41.2 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 13 Aug | 40.8 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 1.1 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Aug | 37.3 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Aug | 36.9 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Aug | 39.0 °C | 21 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Aug after | 36.7 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 37 |
| 18 Aug after | 32.8 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Aug after | 35.0 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 2.3 mm | Moderate 15 |
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 · 147Every 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 الفحص fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 11 August 2021 and 16 August 2021: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,198 hectares (22.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: الفحص (1,914 ha, 2.0 %); الناظور (268 ha, 0.8 %); الوسلاتية (18 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 45.6 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, class Very extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Tunisia (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.
Emergency number: 198
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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.