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عين دراهم fire, 31 July 2017 عين دراهم

Out · last detection 3 Aug 2017, 01:03 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2017 in عين دراهم, Tunisia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 202 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Jendouba since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 19 in Tunisia in 2017, of 31.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.0 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
202ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
31 Jul 2017 – 3 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
delegations
Started on
31 Jul
2017
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
35MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul3 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

31123

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
43km/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

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. عين دراهم where it started
    202 ha reached on 31 Jul
    0.4 %

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 forest64 %
  • Mixed forest13 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland9.0 %
  • Agricultural areas9.0 %
  • Coniferous forest4.5 %

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)
31 Jul 40.8 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Aug 39.7 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Aug 36.4 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Aug 38.7 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Aug after 39.1 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Aug after 34.5 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Aug after 34.2 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Aug after 33.9 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug after 37.6 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Aug after 37.6 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41
10 Aug after 28.0 °C 56 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug after 25.3 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
12 Aug after 24.1 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 21
13 Aug after 27.4 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2017
After · 10 Aug 2017

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 · 8Every 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 Tunisia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the عين دراهم fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 31 July 2017 and 3 August 2017: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 202 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered عين دراهم (202 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Tunisia (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: 198

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
What do you think is wrong?

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 198.

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.