Jerusalem fire, May 2019 Jerusalem
The fire started on 23 May 2019 in Jerusalem, Israel, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 123 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 7 in Israel in 2019, of 7.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.5 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
- 123ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 23 May 2019 – 23 May 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 23 May
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 25 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 99MW
- sum of detected power
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 31 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
-
Jerusalem where it started123 ha reached on 23 May0.2 %
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 areas81 %
- Other natural land15 %
- Mixed forest4.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 May | 41.7 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 24 May after | 41.7 °C | 10 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 25 May after | 30.5 °C | 43 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 May after | 29.9 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 May after | 31.1 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 May after | 31.3 °C | 41 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 May after | 34.2 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 May after | 37.7 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 31 May after | 35.3 °C | 29 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Jun after | 32.8 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Jun after | 32.7 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
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 · 7Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Jerusalem fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 23 May 2019 and 23 May 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 123 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Jerusalem (123 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
- 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.