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SY · Syria · –

Kafr Nobol fire, August 2026 Kafr Nobol

Out · last measured on 25 Sept 2026

The fire started on 1 August 2026 in Kafr Nobol, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 56 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 127 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 25th largest in Idleb since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 2 in Syria in 2026, of 3.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yayladağı · 2025Beit Yashout · 2025Salanfa · 2020Rabee'a · 2025

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
127ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
56days
1 Aug 2026 – 25 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
1 Aug
2026
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

38°high
62km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.7 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kafr Nobol where it started
    127 ha
    0.5 %

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

  • Other natural land78 %
  • Agricultural areas22 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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 60 days without rain: 9.4 % of the area in Syria

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
1 Aug 38.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Aug 37.7 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Aug 36.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Aug 36.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Aug 36.6 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug 34.3 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug 34.1 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug 34.2 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 35.6 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Aug 36.4 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Aug 36.8 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Aug 34.9 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Aug 34.1 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Aug 32.2 °C 46 % 37 km/h 1.1 mm High 31
15 Aug 32.5 °C 47 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
16 Aug 32.7 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Aug 32.1 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
18 Aug 31.1 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm High 29
19 Aug 33.2 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Aug 36.3 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Aug 37.3 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Aug 35.9 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Aug 34.3 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Aug 34.5 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Aug 34.4 °C 42 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Aug 34.8 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Aug 35.1 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug 34.6 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 36
29 Aug 28.2 °C 50 % 29 km/h 7.3 mm Moderate 17
30 Aug 27.6 °C 57 % 35 km/h 7.0 mm Low 6
31 Aug 30.9 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
1 Sept 33.1 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Sept 35.4 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
3 Sept 36.1 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Sept 33.8 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Sept 33.0 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Sept 31.4 °C 43 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 34.5 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Sept 33.8 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Sept 33.4 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Sept 33.3 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Sept 33.6 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Sept 34.1 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
13 Sept 34.0 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Sept 34.2 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Sept 33.5 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Sept 34.4 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Sept 34.7 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept 25.5 °C 61 % 62 km/h 4.5 mm High 27
19 Sept 28.3 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.7 mm Low 9
20 Sept 31.1 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Sept 32.4 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Sept 30.7 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Sept 29.8 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Sept 29.6 °C 45 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Sept 31.0 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
26 Sept after 32.1 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Sept after 28.8 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Sept after 24.4 °C 61 % 50 km/h 5.7 mm Low 11

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 44.1, a minimum humidity of 22% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 20.

FWI at the start 44.1
Minimum humidity 22 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Yayladağı fire, August 2025
109 ha 2 days FWI 40.7 Min. humidity 23 % 45 km away, in 2025

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
297 ha
median area
20 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 7 of 20 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 127 ha against a median of 297 ha. It lasted 56 days, against 2 days.

In 13 of 20, 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 1.4 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

5.7 mmfirst rain
28 Sept3 days after it ended
62km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 25 Sept, and on 28 Sept 5.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 7 of 20, with a median of 1.4 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 · 25 Jul 2026
After · 2 Oct 2026

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 15 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1029 µg/m³
Optical depth0.54
30 Jul12 Aug25 Aug7 Sept20 Sept
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Syria

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kafr Nobol fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 August 2026 to 25 September 2026 (56 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 August 2026 to 1 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 127 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kafr Nobol (127 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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: 20. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 297 ha; 20 % went past 1,000 ha. In 13 of 20, 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 1.4 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. Last day with fire: 1 August 2026 → 25 September 2026.

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 1 August 2026 to 1 August 2026. 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 2025, 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.