Sour fire, 19 October 2023 Sour
The fire started on 19 October 2023 in Sour, Lebanon, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 206 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
The largest in Lebanon in 2023, of 3.
- Burnt area
- 206ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 19 Oct 2023 – 22 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 19 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 51
- in a single hotspot: 166 MW
- Danger at start
- 0
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 50MW
- 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 2 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
-
Sour where it started195 ha reached on 23 Oct0.5 %
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
- Mixed forest56 %
- Coniferous forest36 %
- Other natural land7.7 %
- Agricultural areas1.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Oct | 25.4 °C | 65 % | 35 km/h | 5.5 mm | Very low 0 |
| 20 Oct | 25.7 °C | 68 % | 27 km/h | 0.8 mm | Very low 1 |
| 21 Oct | 28.2 °C | 46 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 22 Oct | 31.5 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 23 Oct after | 30.4 °C | 38 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 24 Oct after | 28.6 °C | 56 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 25 Oct after | 31.0 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 26 Oct after | 33.4 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 27 Oct after | 31.3 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 28 Oct after | 30.2 °C | 49 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 29 Oct after | 29.9 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 30 Oct after | 30.0 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 31 Oct after | 30.2 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 1 Nov after | 30.3 °C | 37 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
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 23 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 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 · 51Every 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 Sour fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 19 October 2023 and 22 October 2023: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 206 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Sour (195 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Lebanon (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 ADM2 (Public Domain). 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.