How long did the Chefchaouen fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 13 September 2019 and 15 September 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 250 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Chefchaouen (251 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.6 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 22.5 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.

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.

MA · Morocco · 2019-09-13 → 2019-09-15

Chefchaouen fire, September 2019 إقليم شفشاون · Chefchaouen

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2019, 02:51 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2019 in Chefchaouen, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 250 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 29th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 5 in Morocco in 2019, of 7.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 250ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 13 Sept 2019 – 15 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; provinces
Started on: 13 Sept; 2019
Heat detections: 21; in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start: 8; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 192MW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Sept 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

131415

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

The weather it burned in

22°high

34km/h · peak gust

45%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 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

Chefchaouen إقليم شفشاون 412,713 inhabitants · 10.6 km from the town where it started

251 ha reached on 13 Sept

0.1 %

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 forest39 %
Mixed forest38 %
Scrub and transitional woodland16 %
Agricultural areas5.9 %

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)
13 Sept	18.9 °C	50 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 8
14 Sept	22.5 °C	48 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
15 Sept	22.0 °C	45 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
16 Sept after	22.8 °C	41 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
17 Sept after	23.6 °C	43 %	25 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 10
18 Sept after	21.4 °C	49 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
19 Sept after	21.9 °C	49 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
20 Sept after	19.8 °C	57 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
21 Sept after	19.5 °C	47 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 11
22 Sept after	18.8 °C	59 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
23 Sept after	21.5 °C	40 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
24 Sept after	23.5 °C	37 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
25 Sept after	22.9 °C	46 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Sept 2019

After · 22 Sept 2019

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 18 September 2019 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1028 µg/m³

WHO 15

1112131415161718

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 21Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Morocco ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chefchaouen fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 13 September 2019 and 15 September 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 250 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Chefchaouen (251 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.6 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 22.5 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned