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Tadmor fire, July 2019 Tadmor, Jeb Ej-Jarrah

Out · last detection 12 Jul 2019, 11:07 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2019 in Tadmor, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,477 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Homs since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 30 in Syria in 2019, of 163.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.4 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
1,477ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
9 Jul 2019 – 11 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
2
subdistricts
Started on
9 Jul
2019
Heat detections
74
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
374MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul11 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

9101112

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

33°high
65km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 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. Tadmor where it started
    1,390 ha reached on 9 Jul
    0.1 %
  2. Jeb Ej-Jarrah
    101 ha reached on 11 Jul
    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

  • Agricultural areas88 %
  • Other natural land12 %

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)
9 Jul 32.2 °C 22 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
10 Jul 33.4 °C 19 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Jul 33.4 °C 25 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
12 Jul after 32.3 °C 26 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
13 Jul after 28.9 °C 32 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Jul after 31.2 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Jul after 29.6 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Jul after 28.6 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jul after 34.8 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Jul after 28.5 °C 34 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Jul after 29.3 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Jul after 31.9 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Jul after 32.3 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Jul after 32.5 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jul 2019
After · 18 Jul 2019

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 · 74Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Syria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tadmor fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 July 2019 and 11 July 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,477 hectares (14.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tadmor (1,390 ha, 0.1 %); Jeb Ej-Jarrah (101 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very extreme.
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.

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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.