Burned area
satellite only249ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 21 July 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
MA · Morocco ·
Beni Mellal fire, July 2026 إقليم بني ملال · Beni Mellal
Out · last detection 16 Jul 2026, 13:00 UTC
The fire started on 16 July 2026 in Beni Mellal, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 249 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 7 in Morocco in 2026, of 16.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Khénifra · 2026Taza · 2023
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only1day
16 Jul 2026 to 16 Jul 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 16 Jul 2026, 13:00 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only16 Jul 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 16 Jul 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only9
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 138 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP + NOAA-20)
- Date
- 16 Jul 2026 – 16 Jul 2026
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only858MW
Total radiative power on 16 July 2026; hotspots that day: 9.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 16 Jul 2026
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model41.1FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 0.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 16 Jul 2026, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model37.8°C · 14% RH
High of 37.8 °C and minimum humidity of 14% on 16 July 2026; gusts of 37 km/h on 16 July 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 16 Jul 2026 – 16 Jul 2026
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 249 ha
- Dates
- 16 Jul 2026 – 16 Jul 2026
- Name
- Beni Mellal
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/beni-mellal-2026-07?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire beni-mellal-2026-07.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-16 | 9 | 858 | 37.8 | 21.9 | 14 | 14.9 | 36.7 | 0.1 | 41.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-07-17 | 0 | 0 | 38.8 | 20.9 | 10 | 15.1 | 36.7 | 0 | 55.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2026-07-18 | 0 | 0 | 37.5 | 21.5 | 11 | 12.2 | 35.3 | 2.3 | 55.9 | extremo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 249ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 1day
- 16 Jul 2026 – 16 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- provinces
- Started on
- 16 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 138 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 858MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
16 Jul16 Jul
How it evolved, day by day
16 Jul 2026 · 858 MW · 9
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
38°high
37km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 18 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
250 ha reached on 16 Jul0.1 %
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
- Coniferous forest85 %
- Agricultural areas8.2 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland6.5 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jul | 37.8 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Jul after | 38.8 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 18 Jul after | 37.5 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 2.3 mm | Extreme 56 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 41.1, a minimum humidity of 14% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 9.
FWI at the start
41.1
Minimum humidity
14 %
Days without rain
0
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Beni Mellal fire, July 2026
249 ha
1 day
FWI 41.1
Min. humidity 14 %
Khénifra fire, July 2026
193 ha
2 days
FWI 46.6
Min. humidity 11 %
78 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Taza fire, August 2023
109 ha
4 days
FWI 45.8
Min. humidity 18 %
229 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 23.7 mm on 2 Sept.
Ifrane fire, September 2020
181 ha
1 day
FWI 43.8
Min. humidity 20 %
124 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.6 mm on 13 Sept.
Al Haouz fire, August 2020
143 ha
1 day
FWI 50.3
Min. humidity 12 %
228 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 14.7 mm on 31 Aug.
Ifrane fire, August 2026
552 ha
3 days
FWI 30.4
Min. humidity 17 %
153 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 6 Aug.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 9. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
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
2.3 mmfirst rain
18 Jul2 days after it ended
37km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 16 Jul, and on 18 Jul 2.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 9 Jul 2026
After · 23 Jul 2026
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 16 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10129 µg/m³
Optical depth0.79
WHO 15
14 Jul16 Jul18 Jul
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 9Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Beni Mellal fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (16 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 16 July 2026 (1 day from 16 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 249 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Beni Mellal (250 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Morocco (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: 15 · 150 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 9 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.