Zefat fire, 4 July 2024 Zefat
The fire started on 4 July 2024 in Zefat, Israel, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 427 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 6th largest in Northern District since 2016 (of 28 with a page). Number 9 in Israel in 2024, of 40.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Golan · 2024Golan · 2024Golan · 2024Zefat · 2024
- Burnt area
- 427ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 4 Jul 2024 – 5 Jul 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- subdistricts
- Started on
- 4 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 10
- in a single hotspot: 180 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 498MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
4 Jul 2024 · 498 MW · 10
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 15 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Zefat where it started428 ha reached on 4 Jul0.6 %
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
- Other natural land81 %
- Agricultural areas15 %
- Mixed forest3.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Jul | 35.1 °C | 29 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Jul | 33.8 °C | 27 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 6 Jul after | 31.1 °C | 48 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Jul after | 31.6 °C | 53 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Jul after | 33.7 °C | 45 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 9 Jul after | 34.7 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Jul after | 36.2 °C | 34 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Jul after | 36.9 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Jul after | 35.9 °C | 33 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Jul after | 34.6 °C | 38 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Jul after | 31.7 °C | 51 % | 46 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Jul after | 32.7 °C | 51 % | 42 km/h | 2.2 mm | Moderate 13 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 5 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Zefat fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 4 July 2024 and 5 July 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 427 hectares (4.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Zefat (428 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 10 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.
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.