Larache fire, September 2020 إقليم العرائش · Larache
The fire started on 3 September 2020 in Larache, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 252 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 28th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 7 in Morocco in 2020, of 11.
- Burnt area
- 252ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 3 Sept 2020 – 4 Sept 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- provinces
- Started on
- 3 Sept
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 22
- in a single hotspot: 305 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.5GW
- 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 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
-
253 ha reached on 3 Sept0.1 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland79 %
- Agricultural areas15 %
- Broadleaved forest6.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept | 30.1 °C | 46 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Sept | 32.2 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Sept after | 31.1 °C | 53 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 6 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 55 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 7 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 53 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 8 Sept after | 30.4 °C | 50 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 9 Sept after | 30.0 °C | 53 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Sept after | 30.3 °C | 47 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 53 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 12 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 51 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 13 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 58 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 14 Sept after | 28.2 °C | 65 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 2 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 22Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,270 haTetouan إقليم تطوانJuly 2022 · 4 days · 11 km away
- 2,084 haLarache إقليم العرائشAugust 2020 · 6 days · 18 km away
- 8,369 haLarache إقليم العرائش25 July 2022 · 6 days · 19 km away
- 864 haChefchaouen إقليم شفشاونSeptember 2020 · 3 days · 20 km away
- 12,623 haLarache إقليم العرائش13 July 2022 · 8 days · 25 km away
- 688 haTangier-Assilah طنجة-أصيلةSeptember 2020 · 3 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Larache fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 3 September 2020 and 4 September 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 252 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Larache (253 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 45.4 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 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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
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.