How long did the Chefchaouen fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 24 August 2020 and 27 August 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 552 hectares (5.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Chefchaouen (552 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 43.2 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 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.

MA · Morocco · 2020-08-24 → 2020-08-27

Chefchaouen fire, August 2020 إقليم شفشاون · Chefchaouen

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2020, 14:04 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2020 in Chefchaouen, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 552 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 5 in Morocco in 2020, of 11.

Burnt area: 552ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 24 Aug 2020 – 27 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; provinces
Started on: 24 Aug; 2020
Heat detections: 63; in a single hotspot: 234 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 27 Aug 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2627

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

29km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 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 · 43.2 km from the town where it started

552 ha reached on 26 Aug

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 forest91 %
Agricultural areas3.8 %
Coniferous forest2.7 %
Scrub and transitional woodland2.2 %
Other natural land0.7 %

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 Aug	27.6 °C	46 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
25 Aug	29.2 °C	43 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
26 Aug	30.9 °C	23 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
27 Aug	31.2 °C	24 %	28 km/h	1.0 mm	High 26
28 Aug after	28.0 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
29 Aug after	23.6 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
30 Aug after	22.8 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
31 Aug after	22.4 °C	55 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
1 Sept after	23.8 °C	46 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
2 Sept after	22.2 °C	52 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
3 Sept after	23.1 °C	50 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
4 Sept after	23.8 °C	56 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
5 Sept after	24.5 °C	49 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
6 Sept after	24.8 °C	46 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Aug 2020

After · 3 Sept 2020

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 26 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1048 µg/m³

WHO 15

222324252627282930

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 · 63Every 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 24 August 2020 and 27 August 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 552 hectares (5.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Chefchaouen (552 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 43.2 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 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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