Bent Jbail fire, 20 October 2024 Bent Jbail
The fire started on 20 October 2024 in Bent Jbail, Lebanon, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 160 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 22th largest in Nabatîyé since 2016 (of 39 with a page). Number 15 in Lebanon in 2024, of 30.
The power measured by the satellite is low (28.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 160ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 7days
- 20 Oct 2024 – 26 Oct 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 20 Oct
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 8
- in a single hotspot: 28 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 44MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 19 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
-
Bent Jbail where it started160 ha reached on 25 Oct0.6 %
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
- Other natural land84 %
- Agricultural areas11 %
- Mixed forest2.5 %
- Artificial surfaces1.9 %
- Coniferous forest0.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.6 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Oct | 22.7 °C | 31 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Oct | 21.6 °C | 28 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 23 Oct | 22.2 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 24 Oct | 23.0 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Oct | 24.7 °C | 13 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Oct | 25.6 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 27 Oct after | 26.0 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 28 Oct after | 25.6 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Oct after | 24.0 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Oct after | 22.3 °C | 46 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 31 Oct after | 22.9 °C | 46 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 1 Nov after | 25.4 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 25 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 8Every 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 Bent Jbail fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 October 2024 to 26 October 2024 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 October 2024 to 22 October 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 160 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bent Jbail (160 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 22.7 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 22 October 2024 → 26 October 2024.
- Start date: 21 October 2024 → 20 October 2024.
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 October 2024 to 22 October 2024. 8 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 (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.