Skip to content
worldfires
TN · Tunisia · →

غار الدماء fire, July 2016 ساقية سيدي يوسف, غار الدماء

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2016, 01:17 UTC

The fire started on 5 July 2016 in غار الدماء, Tunisia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 307 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Jendouba since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 7 in Tunisia in 2016, of 10.

Burnt area
307ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
5 Jul 2016 – 8 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
2
delegations
Started on
5 Jul
2016
Heat detections
39
in a single hotspot: 127 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
853MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jul8 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

56789

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
41km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 10 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. ساقية سيدي يوسف
    203 ha reached on 6 Jul
    0.3 %
  2. غار الدماء where it started
    105 ha reached on 5 Jul
    0.2 %

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

  • Coniferous forest84 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland9.7 %
  • Other land cover3.9 %
  • Agricultural areas2.3 %

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 Rain Danger (FWI)
5 Jul 39.4 °C 18 % 37 km/h 2.1 mm High 35
6 Jul 32.2 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Jul 34.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jul 36.4 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jul after 38.9 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Jul after 38.2 °C 19 % 34 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jun 2016
After · 15 Jul 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 39Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Tunisia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the غار الدماء fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 July 2016 and 8 July 2016: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 307 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: ساقية سيدي يوسف (203 ha, 0.3 %); غار الدماء (105 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Tunisia (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: 198

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
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 198.

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.