How long did the Chefchaouen fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 6 April 2023 and 9 April 2023: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 546 hectares (5.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Chefchaouen (546 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 46.7 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 19.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.

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 · 2023-04-06 → 2023-04-09

Chefchaouen fire, April 2023 إقليم شفشاون · Chefchaouen

Out · last detection 10 Apr 2023, 13:42 UTC

The fire started on 6 April 2023 in Chefchaouen, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 546 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 13th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 4 in Morocco in 2023, of 13.

Burnt area: 546ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 6 Apr 2023 – 9 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; provinces
Started on: 6 Apr; 2023
Heat detections: 64; in a single hotspot: 164 MW
Danger at start: 8; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 985MW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Apr 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Apr9 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

78910

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

The weather it burned in

19°high

45km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

Chefchaouen إقليم شفشاون 412,713 inhabitants · 46.7 km from the town where it started

546 ha reached on 7 Apr

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 forest90 %
Scrub and transitional woodland5.5 %
Agricultural areas3.1 %
Coniferous forest1.3 %

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	Danger (FWI)
6 Apr	13.1 °C	65 %	45 km/h	Low 8
7 Apr	15.8 °C	42 %	37 km/h	Low 9
8 Apr	19.4 °C	29 %	29 km/h	Moderate 12
9 Apr	19.3 °C	31 %	30 km/h	Moderate 12
10 Apr after	22.1 °C	21 %	40 km/h	Moderate 18
11 Apr after	21.5 °C	24 %	26 km/h	Moderate 16
12 Apr after	20.2 °C	25 %	40 km/h	Moderate 18
13 Apr after	17.2 °C	47 %	30 km/h	Moderate 14
14 Apr after	19.1 °C	25 %	30 km/h	Moderate 16
15 Apr after	19.9 °C	38 %	29 km/h	Moderate 16
16 Apr after	18.8 °C	25 %	42 km/h	Moderate 19
17 Apr after	17.1 °C	50 %	40 km/h	Moderate 15
18 Apr after	16.7 °C	49 %	38 km/h	Moderate 14
19 Apr after	15.6 °C	64 %	40 km/h	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Mar 2023

After · 16 Apr 2023

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 8 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1079 µg/m³

Optical depth0.85

WHO 15

4567891011121314

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 · 64Every 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 6 April 2023 and 9 April 2023: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 546 hectares (5.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Chefchaouen (546 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 46.7 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 19.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
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