Golan fire, July 2026 Golan
The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Golan, Israel, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 240 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 2 in Israel in 2026, of 3.
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.
- Burnt area
- 240ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 18 Jul 2026 – 18 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 18 Jul
- 2026
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2024, 16 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Golan where it started242 ha0.2 %
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
- Agricultural areas94 %
- Other natural land6.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jul | 30.4 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Jul after | 31.2 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Jul after | 30.6 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Jul after | 30.4 °C | 36 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Jul after | 31.3 °C | 38 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Jul after | 31.2 °C | 29 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Jul after | 28.7 °C | 40 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Jul after | 28.0 °C | 35 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Jul after | 28.0 °C | 30 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Jul after | 29.8 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 28 Jul after | 30.1 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
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 16 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Golan fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2026 and 18 July 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 240 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Golan (242 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Israel (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: 102
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
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 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). 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.