Rafah fire, May 2022 Rafah
The fire started on 9 May 2022 in Rafah, Egypt, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,157 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
The only fire in Egypt with a page in 2022.
- Burnt area
- 4,157ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 9 May 2022 – 10 May 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 9 May
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 80
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Danger at start
- 60
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.2GW
- 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 44 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
-
Rafah where it started4,180 ha reached on 9 May4.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS 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
- Agricultural areas34 %
- Other natural land3.9 %
- Mixed forest2.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 May | 33.0 °C | 17 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 10 May | 27.2 °C | 39 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 11 May after | 27.2 °C | 39 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 12 May after | 26.1 °C | 39 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 May after | 28.7 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 May after | 32.7 °C | 36 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 15 May after | 25.8 °C | 45 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 May after | 25.4 °C | 46 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 May after | 27.7 °C | 44 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 18 May after | 27.6 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 19 May after | 29.2 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 May after | 30.8 °C | 33 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
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 · 80Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rafah fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 May 2022 and 10 May 2022: 2 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,157 hectares (41.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rafah (4,180 ha, 4.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Egypt (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: 180
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 comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. 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 (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 from each country’s official figure.