Larache fire, 13 July 2022 إقليم العرائش · Larache
The fire started on 13 July 2022 in Larache, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 12,623 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the largest fire in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). The largest in Morocco in 2022, of 22.
- Burnt area
- 12,623ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 8days
- 13 Jul 2022 – 20 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- provinces
- Started on
- 13 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 559
- in a single hotspot: 540 MW
- Danger at start
- 60
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 12.8GW
- 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 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 178 ha in 2016, 30 ha in 2018.
What happened to each town
-
12,634 ha reached on 14 Jul4.6 %
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 forest64 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland20 %
- Agricultural areas15 %
- Coniferous forest0.7 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
Checked against the press
Checked on 29 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Feu de forêt à Larache · Incendie de Bni Ysef Al-Srif · Incendie de Boujdiane / Souk El Qola
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Bosque Bni Ysef Al-Srif 13 July 2022 7,800 ha
- Khemis Sahel / entrada de Ksar El Kebir y bosque urbano (Larache) 14 July 2022
- Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 20 July 2022
Sources
- Feux de forêts: Deux nouveaux départs d'incendie après la circonscription des flammes — Hespress FR, 26 July 2022
- Larache: L'incendie de la forêt "Bni Ysef Al-Srif" complètement circonscrit — Hespress FR, 20 July 2022
- Feu de forêt à Larache: 4.660 hectares concernés, 1.325 familles évacuées — Hespress FR, 16 July 2022
- L'axe routier Larache Kénitra fermé à cause de nouveaux incendies — Hespress FR, 14 July 2022
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Jul | 42.3 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 14 Jul | 39.8 °C | 7 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 15 Jul | 40.3 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 16 Jul | 38.9 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 17 Jul | 39.2 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 18 Jul | 34.6 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Jul | 34.4 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Jul | 37.9 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Jul after | 39.7 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 22 Jul after | 39.6 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 23 Jul after | 41.6 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 24 Jul after | 42.5 °C | 8 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 25 Jul after | 42.1 °C | 9 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 26 Jul after | 36.8 °C | 10 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 27 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Jul after | 32.3 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Jul after | 35.0 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Jul after | 38.6 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 31 Jul after | 41.1 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 1 Aug after | 40.3 °C | 11 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 2 Aug after | 40.8 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 3 Aug after | 36.3 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
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 17 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily 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 · 559Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 864 haChefchaouen إقليم شفشاونSeptember 2020 · 3 days · 21 km away
- 2,084 haLarache إقليم العرائشAugust 2020 · 6 days · 23 km away
- 2,128 haChefchaouen إقليم شفشاونAugust 2021 · 5 days · 26 km away
- 8,369 haLarache إقليم العرائش25 July 2022 · 6 days · 30 km away
- 1,538 haChefchaouen إقليم شفشاون12 August 2025 · 2 days · 36 km away
- 1,270 haTetouan إقليم تطوانJuly 2022 · 4 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Larache fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 13 July 2022 and 20 July 2022: 8 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 12,623 hectares (126.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Larache (12,634 ha, 4.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 35.0 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 42.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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
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.