Berkane fire, July 2023 إقليم بركان · Berkane, Taourirt
The fire started on 16 July 2023 in Berkane, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,682 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Oriental since 2016 (of 10 with a page). The largest in Morocco in 2023, of 13.
- Burnt area
- 2,682ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 16 Jul 2023 – 19 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- provinces
- Started on
- 16 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 171
- in a single hotspot: 141 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.6GW
- 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 36 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
-
2,626 ha reached on 16 Jul1.4 %
-
Taourirt إقليم تاوريرت60 ha reached on 17 Jul0.0 %
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
- Coniferous forest48 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland28 %
- Broadleaved forest22 %
- Other natural land0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jul | 37.7 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 17 Jul | 40.4 °C | 4 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 18 Jul | 39.6 °C | 6 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 19 Jul | 39.0 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 20 Jul after | 38.8 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 21 Jul after | 34.1 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 22 Jul after | 33.0 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 23 Jul after | 35.5 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 24 Jul after | 35.6 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Jul after | 32.1 °C | 20 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 26 Jul after | 30.9 °C | 22 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Jul after | 28.6 °C | 32 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Jul after | 29.3 °C | 41 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Jul after | 34.2 °C | 20 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
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 19 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily 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 · 171Every 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 Berkane fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2023 and 19 July 2023: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,682 hectares (26.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Berkane (2,626 ha, 1.4 %); Taourirt (60 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, class Extreme.
- 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
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.