جلمة fire, June 2021 سبيبة, جلمة
The fire started on 19 June 2021 in جلمة, Tunisia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,197 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 7 in Tunisia in 2021, of 37.
The power measured by the satellite is low (26.1 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
- 1,197ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 19 Jun 2021 – 22 Jun 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- delegations
- Started on
- 19 Jun
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 88
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 502MW
- 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 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 382 ha in 2017, 75 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 419 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
774 ha reached on 21 Jun1.7 %
-
جلمة where it started426 ha reached on 19 Jun0.6 %
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
- Coniferous forest82 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland15 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub1.6 %
- Artificial surfaces0.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jun | 35.4 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Jun | 36.3 °C | 13 % | 45 km/h | 0.4 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 Jun | 36.6 °C | 11 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 22 Jun | 36.9 °C | 10 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Jun after | 34.2 °C | 21 % | 55 km/h | 0.7 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jun after | 34.7 °C | 15 % | 51 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Jun after | 34.8 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Jun after | 34.5 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Jun after | 35.1 °C | 14 % | 49 km/h | 0.7 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 28 Jun after | 37.1 °C | 13 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 29 Jun after | 37.9 °C | 12 % | 59 km/h | 0.4 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 30 Jun after | 37.9 °C | 15 % | 54 km/h | 0.5 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 1 Jul after | 39.1 °C | 9 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 2 Jul after | 37.2 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 3 Jul after | 37.4 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 4 Jul after | 39.7 °C | 11 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 5 Jul after | 36.5 °C | 11 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 6 Jul after | 37.1 °C | 20 % | 39 km/h | 0.4 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Jul after | 36.1 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 8 Jul after | 34.1 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 9 Jul after | 34.8 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 49 |
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 · 88Every 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 جلمة fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 19 June 2021 and 22 June 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,197 hectares (12.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: سبيبة (774 ha, 1.7 %); جلمة (426 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Tunisia (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: 198
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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.