Chefchaouen fire, July 2022 إقليم شفشاون · Chefchaouen
The fire started on 15 July 2022 in Chefchaouen, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 122 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 49th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 20 in Morocco in 2022, of 22.
- Burnt area
- 122ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 15 Jul 2022 – 16 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- provinces
- Started on
- 15 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 15
- in a single hotspot: 251 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 526MW
- 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 more than two months 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
-
123 ha reached on 15 Jul0.0 %
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 forest100 %
Protected area affected (EFFIS layer): 100 %
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 Jul | 26.7 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Jul | 26.2 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 17 Jul after | 26.5 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Jul after | 24.7 °C | 48 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 19 Jul after | 24.7 °C | 61 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 20 Jul after | 26.1 °C | 53 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 21 Jul after | 25.3 °C | 62 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 22 Jul after | 26.1 °C | 49 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 23 Jul after | 28.3 °C | 37 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 24 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Jul after | 32.5 °C | 10 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 15 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 15Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,216 haChefchaouen إقليم شفشاونAugust 2019 · 6 days · 5 km away
- 1,538 haChefchaouen إقليم شفشاون12 August 2025 · 2 days · 26 km away
- 2,128 haChefchaouen إقليم شفشاونAugust 2021 · 5 days · 33 km away
- 8,369 haLarache إقليم العرائش25 July 2022 · 6 days · 35 km away
- 920 haChefchaouen إقليم شفشاونAugust 2022 · 3 days · 36 km away
- 2,084 haLarache إقليم العرائشAugust 2020 · 6 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chefchaouen fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 July 2022 and 16 July 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 122 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chefchaouen (123 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 18.9 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 26.7 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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
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.