Rabee'a fire, September 2025 Rabee'a, Bahlolieh, Qastal Maaf
The fire started on 21 September 2025 in Rabee'a, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,803 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Lattakia since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 3 in Syria in 2025, of 17.
- Burnt area
- 3,803ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 21 Sept 2025 – 24 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 21 Sept
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 304
- in a single hotspot: 320 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 11.1GW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 30 Sept.
This area had burned before
8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 303 ha in 2023.
What happened to each town
-
Rabee'a where it started3,508 ha reached on 21 Sept16 %
-
235 ha reached on 23 Sept2.4 %
-
41 ha reached on 23 Sept0.2 %
-
23 ha reached on 23 Sept0.1 %
-
1 ha0.0 %
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
- Coniferous forest64 %
- Mixed forest24 %
- Other natural land9.5 %
- Agricultural areas2.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Sept | 32.5 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Sept | 32.7 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 23 Sept | 34.4 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Sept | 34.3 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Sept after | 28.1 °C | 58 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 26 Sept after | 28.3 °C | 57 % | 41 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 22 |
| 27 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 58 % | 41 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 29 Sept after | 28.3 °C | 46 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 30 Sept after | 26.5 °C | 62 % | 54 km/h | 4.4 mm | Low 6 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 24 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 304Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,774 haEin El-BaydaJuly 2023 · 6 days · 6 km away
- 13,507 haQastal MaafJuly 2025 · 11 days · 13 km away
- 4,838 haRabee'a17 July 2023 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 4,042 haRabee'aOctober 2020 · 2 days · 13 km away
- 4,824 haQastal Maaf9 October 2020 · 2 days · 14 km away
- 5,936 haFakhuraOctober 2020 · 4 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rabee'a fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 21 September 2025 and 24 September 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,803 hectares (38.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Rabee'a (3,508 ha, 16 %); Bahlolieh (235 ha, 2.4 %); Qastal Maaf (41 ha, 0.2 %); Kansaba (23 ha, 0.1 %); Ein El-Bayda (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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.