Bethlehem fire, June 2021 Bethlehem
The fire started on 6 June 2021 in Bethlehem, Palestinian Territories, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 101 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 14th largest in West Bank since 2016 (of 14 with a page). The only fire in Palestinian Territories with a page in 2021.
- Burnt area
- 101ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 6 Jun 2021 – 6 Jun 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- governorates
- Started on
- 6 Jun
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 2
- in a single hotspot: 43 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 55MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Bethlehem where it started101 ha reached on 6 Jun0.2 %
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 land93 %
- Mixed forest6.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Jun | 26.4 °C | 41 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Jun after | 27.4 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Jun after | 26.6 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Jun after | 30.8 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Jun after | 30.8 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 11 Jun after | 28.0 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Jun after | 30.5 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 13 Jun after | 30.2 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Jun after | 26.3 °C | 44 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Jun after | 26.8 °C | 44 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 16 Jun after | 26.5 °C | 37 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
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 · 2Every 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 Bethlehem fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 6 June 2021 and 6 June 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 101 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bethlehem (101 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.4 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 35 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 Palestinian Territories (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: 102
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 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.