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Zefat fire, 14 June 2024 Zefat, Golan

Out · last measured on 15 Jun 2024

The fire started on 14 June 2024 in Zefat, Israel, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 237 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.

Compare with…

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
237ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
14 Jun 2024 – 15 Jun 2024
Municipalities hit
2
subdistricts
Started on
14 Jun
2024
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

35°high
30km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 23 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Zefat where it started
    7 ha
    0.0 %
  2. 5 ha
    0.0 %

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 areas80 %
  • Other natural land19 %
  • Mixed forest1.3 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
14 Jun 34.9 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Jun 35.3 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Jun after 31.8 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Jun after 30.4 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Jun after 31.5 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Jun after 32.1 °C 64 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 Jun after 32.1 °C 63 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
21 Jun after 31.2 °C 60 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
22 Jun after 29.3 °C 59 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Jun after 30.0 °C 61 % 38 km/h 2.2 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jun 2024
After · 22 Jun 2024

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 14 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1073 µg/m³
Optical depth0.42
121314151617
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Israel ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Zefat fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 June 2024 to 15 June 2024 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 June 2024 to 14 June 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 237 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Zefat (7 ha, 0.0 %); Golan (5 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Israel (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: 102 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

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: 14 June 2024 → 15 June 2024.

RSS Changes to this page

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
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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 102.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 June 2024 to 14 June 2024. 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 2025, 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 ADM2 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). 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.