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Chefchaouen fire, September 2022 إقليم شفشاون · Chefchaouen

Out · last measured on 13 Sept 2022

The fire started on 13 September 2022 in Chefchaouen, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 207 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 15 in Morocco in 2022, of 22.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Chefchaouen · 2019Chefchaouen · 2025Chefchaouen · 2022Chefchaouen · 2020

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
207ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
13 Sept 2022 – 13 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
provinces
Started on
13 Sept
2022
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Protected area
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

24°high
32km/h · peak gust
46%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 18 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Chefchaouen إقليم شفشاون 412,713 inhabitants · 20.5 km from the centre where it started
    207 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Coniferous forest54 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland45 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.9 %

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)
13 Sept 24.5 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
14 Sept after 23.6 °C 47 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Sept after 24.1 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
16 Sept after 24.3 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Sept after 22.2 °C 53 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Sept after 22.0 °C 70 % 47 km/h 2.4 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Sept 2022
After · 20 Sept 2022

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 12 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1054 µg/m³
Optical depth0.49
111213141516
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Morocco ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chefchaouen fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 September 2022 and 13 September 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 207 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chefchaouen (207 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Chefchaouen and came within 20.5 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.5 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.