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Larache fire, 25 July 2022 إقليم العرائش · Larache, Tetouan

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2022, 14:18 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2022 in Larache, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 8,369 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 2 in Morocco in 2022, of 22.

Burnt area
8,369ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
25 Jul 2022 – 30 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
2
provinces
Started on
25 Jul
2022
Heat detections
198
in a single hotspot: 414 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
13.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul30 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2526

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
54km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 32 ha in 2020, 28 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Larache إقليم العرائش 510,211 inhabitants · 58.8 km from the town where it started
    6,255 ha reached on 25 Jul
    2.3 %
  2. Tetouan إقليم تطوان 611,928 inhabitants · 26.0 km from the town
    2,136 ha reached on 26 Jul
    1.1 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest71 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland11 %
  • Agricultural areas11 %
  • Mixed forest3.8 %
  • Coniferous forest3.3 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incendies de Larache · Bni Ysef Al-Srif / Beni Yusef Al Srif · Ahl Sarif / آل سريف
According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
  • Bosque Bni Ysef Al-Srif (comunas Souk El Qolla y Boujediane 13 July 2022 7,800 ha
  • Sahel Al-Manzala / bosque Menzla (comuna Sahel 16 July 2022 470 ha
  • Bouhachem Jbel El Alam (comunas Tazourt y Beni Aarouss 25 July 2022 500 ha
  • Bosque Menzla (comuna Sahel 25 July 2022 30 ha
  • Cerca de douar Rmel / Oued Rmel (comuna Zaaroura 25 July 2022

Sources

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)
25 Jul 37.5 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Jul 33.9 °C 11 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Jul 29.3 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jul 31.0 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jul 33.0 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul 35.2 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jul after 37.5 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Aug after 37.3 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Aug after 36.9 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Aug after 34.6 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Aug after 32.4 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Aug after 31.9 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug after 31.1 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug after 28.9 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Aug after 28.4 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Aug after 30.0 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jul 2022
After · 6 Aug 2022

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 27 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1048 µg/m³
23242526272829303112
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 · 198Every 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 25 July 2022 and 30 July 2022: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 8,369 hectares (83.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Larache (6,255 ha, 2.3 %); Tetouan (2,136 ha, 1.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 26.0 km of Tetouan. 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 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.