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SY · Syria · –

Tell Abiad fire, 28 June 2019 Tell Abiad

Out · last measured on 30 Jun 2019

The fire started on 28 June 2019 in Tell Abiad, Syria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 203 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Ar-Raqqa since 2016 (of 20 with a page). Number 98 in Syria in 2019, of 163.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sarin · 2019Ar-Raqqa · 2019Sarin · 2019Ain al Arab · 2019

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
203ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
28 Jun 2019 – 30 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
subdistricts
Started on
28 Jun
2019
Danger at start
74
Very extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

40°high
46km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 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. Tell Abiad where it started
    204 ha
    0.4 %

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

  • Agricultural areas98 %
  • Other natural land2.0 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
28 Jun 40.4 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
29 Jun 39.1 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
30 Jun 34.6 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
1 Jul after 34.4 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
2 Jul after 37.5 °C 3 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
3 Jul after 37.2 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
4 Jul after 40.7 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
5 Jul after 40.7 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
6 Jul after 40.2 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
7 Jul after 40.4 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
8 Jul after 40.2 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
9 Jul after 39.7 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
10 Jul after 40.1 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 74.3, a minimum humidity of 16% and 55 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 28.

FWI at the start 74.3
Minimum humidity 16 %
Days without rain 55
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Sarin fire, August 2019
311 ha 1 day FWI 78.0 Min. humidity 19 % 16 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
240 ha
median area
4 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 1 of 28 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (203 ha against a median of 240 ha) and lasted 3 days, against 1 day.

In 27 of 28, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
46km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 30 Jun, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 1 of 28, with a median of 1.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2017.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jun 2019
After · 7 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.

Other fires nearby

All fires in Syria

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tell Abiad fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 June 2019 to 30 June 2019 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 June 2019 to 28 June 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 203 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tell Abiad (204 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 28. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 240 ha; 4 % went past 1,000 ha. In 27 of 28, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.2 mm.

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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 28 June 2019 → 30 June 2019.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 June 2019 to 28 June 2019. No 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.