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Ouezzane fire, July 2016 إقليم وزان · Ouezzane

Out · last detection 20 Jul 2016, 02:52 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2016 in Ouezzane, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 199 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 6 in Morocco in 2016, of 12.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
199ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
19 Jul 2016 – 20 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
provinces
Started on
19 Jul
2016
Heat detections
9
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
48MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul20 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1920

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
36km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Ouezzane إقليم وزان where it started
    200 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.1 %

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 forest82 %
  • Agricultural areas18 %

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)
19 Jul 40.9 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jul 35.5 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 39
21 Jul after 35.8 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Jul after 30.9 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jul after 34.8 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jul after 37.6 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul after 39.7 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul after 39.2 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Jul after 32.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Jul after 35.3 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul after 32.7 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jul after 34.3 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2016
After · 27 Jul 2016

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 20 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 86 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak86 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10155 µg/m³
17181920212223
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 · 9Every 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 Ouezzane fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 19 July 2016 and 20 July 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 199 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ouezzane (200 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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
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.