How long did the Jeb Ej-Jarrah fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 May 2019 to 30 May 2019 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 May 2019 to 30 May 2019.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 22,453 hectares (224.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jeb Ej-Jarrah (21,335 ha, 8.6 %); Al Makhrim (1,165 ha, 2.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 89, class Very extreme.

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.

SY · Syria · 2019-05-12 → 2019-05-30

Jeb Ej-Jarrah fire, 12 May 2019 Jeb Ej-Jarrah, Al Makhrim

Out · last detection 30 May 2019, 09:33 UTC

The fire started on 12 May 2019 in Jeb Ej-Jarrah, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 22,453 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Homs since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 2 in Syria in 2019, of 163.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Jeb Ej-Jarrah · 2019 Jeb Ej-Jarrah · 2021 As-Saan · 2019 Jeb Ej-Jarrah · 2021

Burnt area: 22,453ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 19days; 12 May 2019 – 30 May 2019
Municipalities hit: 2; subdistricts
Started on: 12 May; 2019
Heat detections: 407; in a single hotspot: 213 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 330MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 May30 May

Play back 30 May 2019

How it evolved, day by day

12 May 14 May 16 May 19 May 22 May 24 May 29 May

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

59km/h · peak gust

3%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 8 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 14% of the area of London (225 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Jeb Ej-Jarrah where it started

21,335 ha reached on 12 May

8.6 %
Al Makhrim

1,165 ha reached on 23 May

2.1 %

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

Agricultural areas80 %
Other natural land20 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area14 ha

Residents≈ 1,600

Inside the perimeter there were about 14 hectares of built-up land and about 1,600 residents (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)
12 May	30.9 °C	14 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
13 May	32.7 °C	9 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 May	34.5 °C	7 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 May	36.4 °C	7 %	35 km/h	0.5 mm	Extreme 51
16 May	37.1 °C	10 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 71
17 May	36.0 °C	5 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
18 May	27.5 °C	18 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
19 May	28.0 °C	19 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
20 May	30.9 °C	19 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
21 May	33.3 °C	10 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 75
22 May	33.9 °C	12 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 76
23 May	38.3 °C	3 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 81
24 May	38.7 °C	7 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 89
25 May	30.0 °C	15 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 77
26 May	30.0 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
27 May	32.6 °C	10 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
28 May	35.9 °C	7 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
29 May	37.3 °C	10 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
30 May	38.7 °C	9 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 71
31 May after	38.0 °C	11 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 76
1 Jun after	37.7 °C	10 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
2 Jun after	35.9 °C	17 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 70
3 Jun after	35.0 °C	16 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 76
4 Jun after	34.6 °C	22 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 75
5 Jun after	34.9 °C	22 %	47 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 57
6 Jun after	32.2 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
7 Jun after	33.6 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
8 Jun after	34.2 °C	25 %	29 km/h	2.6 mm	High 34

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 May 2019

After · 6 Jun 2019

Before After

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 · 407Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Syria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Jeb Ej-Jarrah fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 May 2019 to 30 May 2019 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 May 2019 to 30 May 2019.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 22,453 hectares (224.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Jeb Ej-Jarrah (21,335 ha, 8.6 %); Al Makhrim (1,165 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 89, class Very extreme.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Start date: 19 May 2019 → 12 May 2019.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 May 2019 to 30 May 2019. 407 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned