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LB · Lebanon · –

Marjaayoun fire, 23 October 2024 Marjaayoun

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2024, 10:03 UTC

The fire started on 23 October 2024 in Marjaayoun, Lebanon, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 107 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Nabatîyé since 2016 (of 39 with a page). Number 24 in Lebanon in 2024, of 30.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…
Burnt area
107ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
23 Oct 2024 – 27 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Oct
2024
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
7MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Oct27 Oct
27 Oct 2024

How it evolved, day by day

23 Oct 2024 · 14 MW · 2 24 Oct 2024 · 3 MW · 1 27 Oct 2024 · 3 MW · 1
23 Oct 24 Oct 27 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
35km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.6 mm on 2 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Marjaayoun where it started
    107 ha reached on 23 Oct
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Other natural land90 %
  • Agricultural areas6.7 %
  • Mixed forest1.9 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.0 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.47 ha
Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.47 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
23 Oct 22.4 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Oct 23.2 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Oct 24.9 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Oct 25.9 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Oct 26.2 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Oct after 25.8 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Oct after 24.4 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Oct after 22.9 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Oct after 23.4 °C 44 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 21
1 Nov after 25.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Nov after 25.1 °C 45 % 30 km/h 11.6 mm Very low 2

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 27.7, a minimum humidity of 15% and 15 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.

FWI at the start 27.7
Minimum humidity 15 %
Days without rain 15
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Jezzine fire, November 2025
105 ha 2 days FWI 31.5 Min. humidity 13 % 17 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.7 mm on 13 Nov.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
170 ha
median area
11 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 27 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 107 ha against a median of 170 ha. It lasted 5 days, against 2 days.

In 13 of 27, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.8 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

11.6 mmfirst rain
2 Nov6 days after it ended
35km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 Oct, and on 2 Nov 11.6 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 27, with a median of 1.8 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Oct 2024
After · 3 Nov 2024

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 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 42 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak42 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1060 µg/m³
Optical depth0.42
21 Oct23 Oct25 Oct27 Oct
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 · 4Every 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 Lebanon

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Marjaayoun fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 October 2024 to 27 October 2024 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 October 2024 to 24 October 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 107 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Marjaayoun (107 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Lebanon (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 27. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 170 ha; 11 % went past 1,000 ha. In 13 of 27, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.8 mm.

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.

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 24 October 2024 → 27 October 2024.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 October 2024 to 24 October 2024. 4 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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 (Public Domain). 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.