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Chefchaouen fire, October 2017 إقليم شفشاون · Larache, Chefchaouen

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2017, 02:58 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Chefchaouen, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 347 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 21th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 3 in Morocco in 2017, of 11.

Burnt area
347ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
15 Oct 2017 – 16 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
2
provinces
Started on
15 Oct
2017
Heat detections
41
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
743MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1516

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
41km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Larache إقليم العرائش 510,211 inhabitants · 60.6 km from the town
    235 ha reached on 15 Oct
    0.1 %
  2. Chefchaouen إقليم شفشاون 412,713 inhabitants · 26.9 km from the town where it started
    113 ha reached on 15 Oct
    0.0 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest65 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland20 %
  • Agricultural areas8.8 %
  • Coniferous forest5.5 %

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)
15 Oct 28.3 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Oct 27.1 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
17 Oct after 24.9 °C 36 % 56 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Oct 2017
After · 23 Oct 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 · 41Every 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 Morocco ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chefchaouen fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 15 October 2017 and 16 October 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 347 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Larache (235 ha, 0.1 %); Chefchaouen (113 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 26.9 km of Chefchaouen. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.3 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class High.
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
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 15 · 150.

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.