Sour fire, 26 October 2023 Sour
The fire started on 26 October 2023 in Sour, Lebanon, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 186 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 2 in Lebanon in 2023, of 3.
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- Burnt area
- 186ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 26 Oct 2023 – 26 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 26 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 26
- in a single hotspot: 51 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 145MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
26 Oct 2023 · 145 MW · 20
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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 2 Nov.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2021.
What happened to each town
-
Sour where it started183 ha reached on 25 Oct0.4 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Other natural land58 %
- Agricultural areas31 %
- Mixed forest9.1 %
- Artificial surfaces2.1 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.62 hectares of built-up land and about 100 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Oct | 32.6 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 27 Oct after | 30.5 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 28 Oct after | 29.4 °C | 48 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 29 Oct after | 29.1 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 30 Oct after | 29.2 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 31 Oct after | 29.4 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 1 Nov after | 29.5 °C | 37 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 2 Nov after | 27.1 °C | 60 % | 26 km/h | 2.7 mm | Very low 2 |
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 27 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 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 · 26Every 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 26 October 2023 and 26 October 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 186 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Sour (183 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
- 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 26 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.