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برقو fire, July 2017 الوسلاتية, برقو

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2017, 00:25 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2017 in برقو, Tunisia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 264 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Siliana since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 17 in Tunisia in 2017, of 31.

Burnt area
264ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
2 Jul 2017 – 4 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
delegations
Started on
2 Jul
2017
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
101MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul4 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

234

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

28°high
58km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 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

  1. الوسلاتية
    193 ha reached on 3 Jul
    0.2 %
  2. برقو where it started
    72 ha reached on 2 Jul
    0.2 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub73 %
  • Agricultural areas23 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.9 %
  • Other natural land1.5 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland0.8 %

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)
2 Jul 25.3 °C 32 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Jul 26.0 °C 35 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Jul 27.7 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Jul after 30.6 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Jul after 31.5 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Jul after 32.0 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Jul after 33.4 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jul after 34.0 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Jul after 35.2 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Jul after 38.4 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Jul after 40.8 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Jul after 36.4 °C 17 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Jul after 34.4 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 25 Jun 2017
After · 11 Jul 2017

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 · 12Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Tunisia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the برقو fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 2 July 2017 and 4 July 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 264 hectares (2.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: الوسلاتية (193 ha, 0.2 %); برقو (72 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 198.

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.