غار الدماء fire, July 2020 غار الدماء
The fire started on 23 July 2020 in غار الدماء, Tunisia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 177 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 18th largest in Jendouba since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 13 in Tunisia in 2020, of 20.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 177ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 23 Jul 2020 – 28 Jul 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- delegations
- Started on
- 23 Jul
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 10
- in a single hotspot: 30 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 34MW
- 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 7 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
-
غار الدماء where it started177 ha reached on 24 Jul0.4 %
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
- Broadleaved forest77 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland21 %
- Coniferous forest1.1 %
- Other land cover0.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jul | 35.9 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 24 Jul | 31.3 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Jul | 33.3 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Jul | 36.0 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Jul | 37.8 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 28 Jul | 38.0 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 29 Jul after | 37.6 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Jul after | 38.7 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 31 Jul after | 39.8 °C | 5 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 1 Aug after | 37.9 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 2 Aug after | 38.2 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 3 Aug after | 36.7 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.8 mm | Very high 48 |
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.
Detections table · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,171 haBuqus بوقوس23 July 2017 · 13 days · 17 km away
- 2,697 haBuqus بوقوسAugust 2021 · 4 days · 18 km away
- 6,376 haEl Tarf الطارف25 August 2026 · 4 days · 26 km away
- 3,550 haساقية سيدي يوسفJuly 2021 · 5 days · 26 km away
- 2,760 haChefia الشافية10 August 2021 · 4 days · 27 km away
- 6,415 haBouteldja بوثلجةAugust 2022 · 9 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the غار الدماء fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 July 2020 to 28 July 2020 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 July 2020 to 24 July 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 177 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered غار الدماء (177 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 24 July 2020 → 28 July 2020.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 July 2020 to 24 July 2020. 10 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.