Nasra fire, October 2020 Bariqiyeh, Mashta Elhiu, Nasra
The fire started on 7 October 2020 in Nasra, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,112 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Homs since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 7 in Syria in 2020, of 23.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,112ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 7 Oct 2020 – 10 Oct 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 7 Oct
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 134
- in a single hotspot: 265 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.1GW
- detected power per day, on average
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 33 days 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.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,103 ha reached on 8 Oct29 %
-
742 ha reached on 8 Oct14 %
-
Nasra where it started272 ha reached on 7 Oct4.1 %
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
- Mixed forest46 %
- Coniferous forest25 %
- Other natural land21 %
- Agricultural areas6.5 %
- Artificial surfaces0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Oct | 34.1 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Oct | 35.3 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Oct | 36.7 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 10 Oct | 32.2 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 11 Oct after | 28.0 °C | 52 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 12 Oct after | 29.6 °C | 43 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Oct after | 26.0 °C | 61 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 14 Oct after | 26.7 °C | 52 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 15 Oct after | 27.9 °C | 46 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Oct after | 27.4 °C | 51 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Oct after | 28.5 °C | 38 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Oct after | 30.2 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 19 Oct after | 31.3 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 20 Oct after | 32.3 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
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.
Detections table · 134Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nasra fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 7 October 2020 and 10 October 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,112 hectares (21.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bariqiyeh (1,103 ha, 29 %); Mashta Elhiu (742 ha, 14 %); Nasra (272 ha, 4.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Syria (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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 134 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.
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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.