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Larache fire, June 2017 إقليم العرائش · Larache

Out · last detection 24 Jun 2017, 13:14 UTC

The fire started on 24 June 2017 in Larache, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 264 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 7 in Morocco in 2017, of 11.

Burnt area
264ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
24 Jun 2017 – 24 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
provinces
Started on
24 Jun
2017
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
135MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jun24 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

24

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
38km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 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. Larache إقليم العرائش 510,211 inhabitants · 43.1 km from the town where it started
    265 ha reached on 24 Jun
    0.1 %

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 areas94 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland6.5 %

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)
24 Jun 39.0 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jun after 35.9 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jun after 30.7 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Jun after 26.1 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Jun after 24.9 °C 55 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Jun after 23.7 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
30 Jun after 24.7 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Jul after 29.7 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Jul after 31.0 °C 33 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Jul after 32.8 °C 36 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Jul after 31.6 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jun 2017
After · 1 Jul 2017

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 26 June 2017 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1032 µg/m³
222324252627
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)

Detections table · 3Every 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 Morocco ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Larache fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 24 June 2017 and 24 June 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 264 hectares (2.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Larache (265 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 43.1 km of Larache. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Morocco (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: 15 · 150

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. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 15 · 150.

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.