How long did the Tetouan fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 14 July 2022 and 17 July 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,270 hectares (12.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Tetouan (1,272 ha, 0.7 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 37.1 km of Tetouan. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.

Where does this data come from?

From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Morocco (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

MA · Morocco · 2022-07-14 → 2022-07-17

Tetouan fire, July 2022 إقليم تطوان · Tetouan

Out · last detection 17 Jul 2022, 02:26 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2022 in Tetouan, Morocco, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,270 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 4 in Morocco in 2022, of 22.

Burnt area: 1,270ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 14 Jul 2022 – 17 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; provinces
Started on: 14 Jul; 2022
Heat detections: 73; in a single hotspot: 189 MW
Danger at start: 58; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 2.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 17 Jul 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul17 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

151617

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

61km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 124 ha in 2017.

124 ha Tetouan fire, September 2017 124 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Tetouan إقليم تطوان 611,928 inhabitants · 37.1 km from the town where it started

1,272 ha reached on 15 Jul

0.7 %

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

Broadleaved forest46 %
Scrub and transitional woodland40 %
Agricultural areas14 %

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)
14 Jul	37.0 °C	15 %	61 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
15 Jul	37.2 °C	20 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
16 Jul	36.7 °C	21 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
17 Jul	36.4 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
18 Jul after	34.2 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
19 Jul after	33.7 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Jul after	37.5 °C	20 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
21 Jul after	35.7 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
22 Jul after	38.1 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
23 Jul after	40.6 °C	14 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
24 Jul after	39.4 °C	14 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
25 Jul after	41.4 °C	11 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
26 Jul after	36.9 °C	12 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
27 Jul after	32.4 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Jul 2022

After · 24 Jul 2022

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 18 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1031 µg/m³

WHO 15

121314151617181920

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 73Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Morocco ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tetouan fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 14 July 2022 and 17 July 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,270 hectares (12.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Tetouan (1,272 ha, 0.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 37.1 km of Tetouan. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?: From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Morocco (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: 15 · 150

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 15 · 150.

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.

Where it burned