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Larache fire, August 2020 إقليم العرائش · Larache, Chefchaouen

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2020, 02:51 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2020 in Larache, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,084 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). The largest in Morocco in 2020, of 11.

Burnt area
2,084ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
26 Aug 2020 – 31 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
2
provinces
Started on
26 Aug
2020
Heat detections
293
in a single hotspot: 554 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
71km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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 · 59.2 km from the town where it started
    1,484 ha reached on 26 Aug
    0.5 %
  2. Chefchaouen إقليم شفشاون 412,713 inhabitants · 22.3 km from the town
    606 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.2 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest53 %
  • Agricultural areas22 %
  • Coniferous forest14 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland11 %
  • Mixed forest0.8 %

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)
26 Aug 36.1 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Aug 35.0 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Aug 27.2 °C 34 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Aug 22.3 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
30 Aug 25.8 °C 18 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Aug 26.5 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Sept after 26.8 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Sept after 26.6 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Sept after 25.7 °C 28 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept after 29.7 °C 34 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Sept after 31.2 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Sept after 30.5 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Sept after 30.5 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Sept after 28.6 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Sept after 27.3 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Sept after 28.6 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept after 29.0 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Sept after 29.5 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept after 28.9 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Sept after 27.1 °C 48 % 43 km/h 0.6 mm High 23
15 Sept after 27.2 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
16 Sept after 27.7 °C 34 % 80 km/h 0.6 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2020
After · 7 Sept 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 28 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 78 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak78 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM10101 µg/m³
2425262728293031123456789
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 · 293Every 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 26 August 2020 and 31 August 2020: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,084 hectares (20.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Larache (1,484 ha, 0.5 %); Chefchaouen (606 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 22.3 km of Chefchaouen. 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 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.