Rabee'a fire, 4 September 2017 Rabee'a
The fire started on 4 September 2017 in Rabee'a, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 105 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.
The power measured by the satellite is low (27.6 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
- 105ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 4 Sept 2017 – 5 Sept 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 4 Sept
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 12
- in a single hotspot: 28 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 28MW
- sum of detected power
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 2 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
-
Rabee'a where it started105 ha reached on 4 Sept0.5 %
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 forest54 %
- Coniferous forest43 %
- Agricultural areas2.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Sept | 34.4 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 5 Sept | 31.1 °C | 45 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 6 Sept after | 28.6 °C | 59 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Sept after | 29.8 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Sept after | 33.4 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 46 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 11 Sept after | 30.4 °C | 55 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Sept after | 32.5 °C | 34 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 13 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 14 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Sept after | 31.6 °C | 48 % | 35 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.
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 · 12Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,042 haRabee'aOctober 2020 · 2 days · 0 km away
- 4,838 haRabee'a17 July 2023 · 6 days · 2 km away
- 13,507 haQastal MaafJuly 2025 · 11 days · 10 km away
- 4,774 haEin El-BaydaJuly 2023 · 6 days · 12 km away
- 3,803 haRabee'aSeptember 2025 · 4 days · 13 km away
- 4,824 haQastal Maaf9 October 2020 · 2 days · 19 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rabee'a fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 4 September 2017 and 5 September 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 105 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rabee'a (105 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class High.
- 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
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.