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برقو fire, August 2017 برقو, الفحص

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2017, 00:32 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2017 in برقو, Tunisia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,062 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Siliana since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 2 in Tunisia in 2017, of 31.

Burnt area
3,062ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
8 Aug 2017 – 10 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
2
delegations
Started on
8 Aug
2017
Heat detections
126
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8910

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
42km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone one day 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. برقو where it started
    2,235 ha reached on 8 Aug
    5.0 %
  2. الفحص
    834 ha reached on 9 Aug
    0.9 %

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 forest64 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland19 %
  • Agricultural areas14 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.2 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub0.8 %

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)
8 Aug 38.9 °C 18 % 36 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 39.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 45
10 Aug 34.9 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 38
11 Aug after 28.5 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Aug after 26.7 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
13 Aug after 29.6 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug after 33.4 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Aug after 33.9 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Aug after 33.7 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug after 32.5 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug after 33.8 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Aug after 35.3 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Aug after 32.2 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2017
After · 17 Aug 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 · 126Every 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 8 August 2017 and 10 August 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 3,062 hectares (30.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: برقو (2,235 ha, 5.0 %); الفحص (834 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.