Sa'sa' fire, November 2019 Sa'sa'
The fire started on 3 November 2019 in Sa'sa', Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 248 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 91 in Syria in 2019, of 163.
The power measured by the satellite is low (3.4 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
- 248ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 3 Nov 2019 – 3 Nov 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 3 Nov
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 1
- in a single hotspot: 3 MW
- Danger at start
- 9
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 192 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
Sa'sa' where it started248 ha reached on 3 Nov0.8 %
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
- Agricultural areas94 %
- Other natural land6.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Nov | 22.0 °C | 45 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 9 |
| 4 Nov after | 22.8 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 5 Nov after | 24.6 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 6 Nov after | 24.4 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 7 Nov after | 24.0 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 8 Nov after | 24.6 °C | 35 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 9 Nov after | 25.1 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 10 Nov after | 24.9 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 11 Nov after | 24.6 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Nov after | 22.7 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Nov after | 23.2 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
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 · 1Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sa'sa' fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 3 November 2019 and 3 November 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 248 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Sa'sa' (248 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 22.0 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, class Low.
- 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.