Skip to content
worldfires
SY · Syria · →

Kansaba fire, October 2020 Kansaba, Jisr-Ash-Shugur, Badama

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2020, 10:17 UTC

The fire started on 8 October 2020 in Kansaba, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,603 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Lattakia since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 5 in Syria in 2020, of 23.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.6 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
2,603ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
8 Oct 2020 – 10 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
4
subdistricts
Started on
8 Oct
2020
Heat detections
15
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
75MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Oct10 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

8910

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high
45km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 58 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 65 ha in 2016, 4 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Kansaba where it started
    1,220 ha reached on 8 Oct
    7.2 %
  2. Jisr-Ash-Shugur
    776 ha
    3.0 %
  3. Badama
    413 ha reached on 9 Oct
    3.6 %
  4. Ziyara
    200 ha
    1.0 %

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 forest33 %
  • Mixed forest28 %
  • Other natural land26 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %

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)
8 Oct 30.1 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Oct 29.8 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Oct 28.8 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Oct after 25.5 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Oct after 26.6 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Oct after 24.6 °C 49 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Oct after 24.2 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Oct after 24.0 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
16 Oct after 24.2 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Oct after 24.2 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Oct after 26.0 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Oct after 26.3 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
20 Oct after 27.4 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Oct 2020
After · 17 Oct 2020

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 · 15Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Syria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kansaba fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 October 2020 and 10 October 2020: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,603 hectares (26.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Kansaba (1,220 ha, 7.2 %); Jisr-Ash-Shugur (776 ha, 3.0 %); Badama (413 ha, 3.6 %); Ziyara (200 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
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

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?

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

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.