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SY · Syria · –

Jebel Saman fire, May 2021 Jebel Saman

Out · last measured on 16 May 2021

The fire started on 12 May 2021 in Jebel Saman, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 130 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 48th largest in Aleppo since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 19 in Syria in 2021, of 23.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tell Abiad · 2019Akkar · 2020Jebel Saman · 2019Haritan · 2024

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
130ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
12 May 2021 – 16 May 2021
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
12 May
2021
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

33°high
50km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 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

  1. Jebel Saman where it started
    130 ha
    0.2 %

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 areas49 %
  • Other natural land36 %
  • Artificial surfaces15 %

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 area3.4 ha
Residents≈ 500

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.4 hectares of built-up land and about 500 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)

Started with Very dry air: 52 % of the area in Syria

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
12 May 32.3 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 May 33.1 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 May 33.0 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 May 32.1 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 May 30.3 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 May after 30.1 °C 22 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 May after 31.4 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 May after 32.9 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 May after 37.2 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 May after 35.0 °C 19 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 May after 27.1 °C 30 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 May after 28.8 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 May after 32.3 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 May after 34.4 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 May after 36.2 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 55.0, a minimum humidity of 13% and 29 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 55.0
Minimum humidity 13 %
Days without rain 29
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Tell Abiad fire, June 2019
184 ha 1 day FWI 60.6 Min. humidity 13 % 157 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
204 ha
median area
28 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 2 of 18 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 130 ha against a median of 204 ha. It lasted 5 days, against 2 days.

In 16 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.5 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
50km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 16 May, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 2 of 18, with a median of 1.5 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 May 2021
After · 23 May 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.

Other fires nearby

All fires in Syria

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Jebel Saman fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 May 2021 to 16 May 2021 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 May 2021 to 16 May 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 130 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Jebel Saman (130 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 204 ha; 28 % went past 1,000 ha. In 16 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.5 mm.

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

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 15 May 2021 → 12 May 2021.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 May 2021 to 16 May 2021. No 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.