سبيطلة fire, June 2017 سبيطلة
The fire started on 30 June 2017 in سبيطلة, Tunisia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 922 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 10th largest in Kasserine since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 5 in Tunisia in 2017, of 31.
- Burnt area
- 922ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 30 Jun 2017 – 30 Jun 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- delegations
- Started on
- 30 Jun
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 35
- in a single hotspot: 62 MW
- Danger at start
- 68
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 533MW
- 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 7 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
-
سبيطلة where it started925 ha reached on 30 Jun0.8 %
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
- Coniferous forest89 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland9.4 %
- Agricultural areas1.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Jun | 37.0 °C | 10 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 1 Jul after | 28.2 °C | 28 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Jul after | 25.2 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Jul after | 25.6 °C | 30 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 4 Jul after | 28.0 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Jul after | 30.7 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Jul after | 31.0 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 7 Jul after | 31.0 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Jul after | 32.3 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Jul after | 33.1 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 10 Jul after | 35.3 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
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 · 35Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,730 haالقصرين الجنوبيةJune 2020 · 6 days · 10 km away
- 1,196 haسبيطلةJuly 2020 · 6 days · 14 km away
- 1,310 haالقصرين الجنوبيةJuly 2021 · 6 days · 15 km away
- 1,124 haسبالة أوالد عسكرAugust 2021 · 6 days · 22 km away
- 1,783 haالقصرين الجنوبيةJuly 2020 · 5 days · 27 km away
- 2,255 haالقصرين الجنوبية26 June 2021 · 12 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the سبيطلة fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 30 June 2017 and 30 June 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 922 hectares (9.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered سبيطلة (925 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Tunisia (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: 198
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 ADM2 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.