برقو fire, July 2022 برقو, الوسلاتية
The fire started on 24 July 2022 in برقو, Tunisia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,615 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Siliana since 2016 (of 10 with a page). The largest in Tunisia in 2022, of 23.
- Burnt area
- 1,615ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 24 Jul 2022 – 27 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- delegations
- Started on
- 24 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 56
- in a single hotspot: 131 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 999MW
- 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 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.1 mm on 6 Aug.
This area had burned before
8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 127 ha in 2017, 1 ha in 2021.
What happened to each town
-
برقو where it started1,393 ha reached on 24 Jul3.1 %
-
224 ha reached on 26 Jul0.2 %
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 scrub33 %
- Coniferous forest28 %
- Other natural land17 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland13 %
- Agricultural areas3.9 %
- Mixed forest3.4 %
- Broadleaved forest2.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jul | 32.7 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Jul | 34.7 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 26 Jul | 35.8 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 Jul | 35.3 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 1.8 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Jul after | 33.8 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Jul after | 33.9 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 30 Jul after | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 41 |
| 31 Jul after | 33.6 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 3 Aug after | 30.0 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 41 % | 32 km/h | 7.1 mm | Low 6 |
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 · 56Every 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 برقو fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2022 and 27 July 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,615 hectares (16.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: برقو (1,393 ha, 3.1 %); الوسلاتية (224 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 34 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
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.