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Heish fire, June 2021 Heish, Kafr Nobol

Out · last detection 25 Jun 2021, 11:20 UTC

The fire started on 25 June 2021 in Heish, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 237 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Idleb since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 13 in Syria in 2021, of 23.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
237ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
25 Jun 2021 – 25 Jun 2021
Municipalities hit
2
subdistricts
Started on
25 Jun
2021
Heat detections
16
in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
164MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jun25 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

25

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
36km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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

  1. Heish where it started
    169 ha reached on 25 Jun
    0.9 %
  2. Kafr Nobol
    68 ha reached on 25 Jun
    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

  • Agricultural areas62 %
  • Other natural land38 %

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)
25 Jun 33.8 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jun after 33.7 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jun after 34.9 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jun after 35.5 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Jun after 35.3 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Jun after 36.3 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jul after 35.6 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Jul after 34.6 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Jul after 33.5 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Jul after 30.2 °C 45 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Jul after 31.8 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jun 2021
After · 2 Jul 2021

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 · 16Every 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 Syria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Heish fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 25 June 2021 and 25 June 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 237 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Heish (169 ha, 0.9 %); Kafr Nobol (68 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Syria (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.

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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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.