Chouf fire, September 2023 Chouf
The fire started on 14 September 2023 in Chouf, Lebanon, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 174 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 3 in Lebanon in 2023, of 3.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 174ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 14 Sept 2023 – 15 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 13
- in a single hotspot: 81 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 205MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 15 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
-
Chouf where it started174 ha reached on 14 Sept0.4 %
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
- Other natural land80 %
- Mixed forest17 %
- Coniferous forest1.2 %
- Artificial surfaces1.2 %
- Agricultural areas0.6 %
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 Sept | 28.2 °C | 32 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Sept | 28.0 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 Sept after | 27.4 °C | 51 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 17 Sept after | 27.2 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 18 Sept after | 29.1 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Sept after | 26.2 °C | 53 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 21 Sept after | 27.7 °C | 54 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 22 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 59 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 23 Sept after | 30.0 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 24 Sept after | 29.0 °C | 49 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 25 Sept after | 28.0 °C | 49 % | 32 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.
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 12 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.2 times the WHO daily 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 · 13Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chouf fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 14 September 2023 and 15 September 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 174 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chouf (174 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.2 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Lebanon (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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 13 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.
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 (Public Domain). 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.