Skip to content
worldfires
MA · Morocco · →

Ouezzane fire, July 2022 إقليم وزان · Ouezzane

Out · last detection 16 Jul 2022, 12:24 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2022 in Ouezzane, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 347 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 12 in Morocco in 2022, of 22.

Burnt area
347ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
13 Jul 2022 – 16 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
provinces
Started on
13 Jul
2022
Heat detections
34
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
413MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

13141516

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
41km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 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
    348 ha reached on 13 Jul
    0.2 %

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 forest55 %
  • Agricultural areas34 %
  • Broadleaved forest7.4 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland3.7 %

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)
13 Jul 36.7 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Jul 34.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Jul 36.3 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul 35.7 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Jul after 37.1 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul after 34.9 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Jul after 33.6 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Jul after 35.2 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Jul after 37.1 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm High 38
22 Jul after 37.0 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm High 37
23 Jul after 37.5 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 38
24 Jul after 37.6 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jul after 37.4 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jul after 35.4 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jul 2022
After · 23 Jul 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 16 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1064 µg/m³
111213141516171819
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 · 34Every 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 13 July 2022 and 16 July 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 347 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ouezzane (348 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.