Skip to content
worldfires
PS · Palestinian Territories · →

Salfit fire, June 2024 Salfit, Ramallah & Al Bireh

Out · last measured on 6 Jun 2024

The fire started on 6 June 2024 in Salfit, Palestinian Territories, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 114 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 12th largest in West Bank since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 5 in Palestinian Territories in 2024, of 5.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
114ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
6 Jun 2024 – 6 Jun 2024
Municipalities hit
2
governorates
Started on
6 Jun
2024
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

33°high
30km/h · peak gust
44%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 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. Salfit where it started
    93 ha
    0.5 %
  2. Ramallah & Al Bireh
    21 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Other natural land100 %

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)
6 Jun 33.1 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Jun after 34.3 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Jun after 33.3 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Jun after 29.7 °C 51 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Jun after 30.0 °C 53 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Jun after 30.8 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Jun after 31.8 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Jun after 34.4 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Jun after 35.4 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Jun after 36.3 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jun after 32.5 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 May 2024
After · 13 Jun 2024

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 6 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1079 µg/m³
Optical depth0.42
456789
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Palestinian Territories ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Salfit fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 June 2024 and 6 June 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 114 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Salfit (93 ha, 0.5 %); Ramallah & Al Bireh (21 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Palestinian Territories (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: 102

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 102.

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 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.