How long did the Chefchaouen fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 14 August 2021 and 18 August 2021: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,128 hectares (21.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Chefchaouen (2,133 ha, 0.6 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.8 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 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.

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 · 2021-08-14 → 2021-08-18

Chefchaouen fire, August 2021 إقليم شفشاون · Chefchaouen

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2021, 03:10 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2021 in Chefchaouen, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,128 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). The largest in Morocco in 2021, of 10.

Burnt area: 2,128ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 5days; 14 Aug 2021 – 18 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; provinces
Started on: 14 Aug; 2021
Heat detections: 129; in a single hotspot: 259 MW
Danger at start: 52; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 2.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 18 Aug 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

40km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 41 ha in 2019, 10 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 41 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Chefchaouen إقليم شفشاون 412,713 inhabitants · 10.8 km from the town where it started

2,133 ha reached on 14 Aug

0.6 %

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 forest46 %
Scrub and transitional woodland21 %
Agricultural areas20 %
Mixed forest9.2 %
Coniferous forest4.0 %

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)
14 Aug	37.1 °C	8 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
15 Aug	36.5 °C	7 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
16 Aug	35.4 °C	9 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
17 Aug	29.9 °C	11 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
18 Aug	28.8 °C	23 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Aug after	28.7 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
20 Aug after	29.9 °C	22 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Aug after	27.7 °C	40 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Aug after	29.6 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.4 mm	High 34
23 Aug after	31.0 °C	28 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
24 Aug after	26.5 °C	46 %	40 km/h	0.5 mm	High 28
25 Aug after	25.8 °C	36 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
26 Aug after	28.5 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
27 Aug after	27.0 °C	40 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
28 Aug after	24.5 °C	32 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Aug 2021

After · 25 Aug 2021

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 16 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak69 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10246 µg/m³

WHO 15

12131415161718192021

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 · 129Every 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 14 August 2021 and 18 August 2021: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,128 hectares (21.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Chefchaouen (2,133 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.8 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 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
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