Snapshot · observed September 13, 2026, 07:16 UTC

Fire at a Saudi Aramco oil processing facility, Khurais, eastern Saudi Arabia — 13 September 2026

Saudi Aramco oil/gas processing facility with an adjacent airstrip, Khurais production area, eastern Saudi Arabia (Riyadh Province)

Snapshots are curated, event-dated observations from open satellite data. They document specific events; they are not the systematic instrument records above. Every image carries its provenance in-frame.

Fire at a Saudi Aramco oil processing facility, Khurais, eastern Saudi Arabia — 13 September 2026 — Before / burning diptych — 8 September (plant intact) vs 13 September (active fire and smoke), same framing — Before / burning diptych — 8 September (plant intact) vs 13 September (active fire and smoke), same framing · SWIR false colour R:B12 G:B08 B:B04 · 10 m/px · open full resolution ↗

Fire at a Saudi Aramco oil processing facility, Khurais, eastern Saudi Arabia — 13 September 2026 — Before — 8 September, the processing plant intact, only routine flares — Before — 8 September, the processing plant intact, only routine flares · SWIR false colour R:B12 G:B08 B:B04 · 10 m/px · open full resolution ↗

Fire at a Saudi Aramco oil processing facility, Khurais, eastern Saudi Arabia — 13 September 2026 — 13 September, 07:16 UTC — shortwave-infrared-saturated combustion at the western processing trains, with a heavy smoke plume — 13 September, 07:16 UTC — shortwave-infrared-saturated combustion at the western processing trains, with a heavy smoke plume · SWIR false colour R:B12 G:B08 B:B04 · 10 m/px · open full resolution ↗

Fire at a Saudi Aramco oil processing facility, Khurais, eastern Saudi Arabia — 13 September 2026 — 13 September, true colour — a thick black smoke plume rooted at the western processing area, drifting south-west — 13 September, true colour — a thick black smoke plume rooted at the western processing area, drifting south-west · true colour R:B04 G:B03 B:B02 · 10 m/px · open full resolution ↗

Fire at a Saudi Aramco oil processing facility, Khurais, eastern Saudi Arabia — 13 September 2026 — Wide context — 13 September, the fire and plume against the full facility footprint and its airstrip — Wide context — 13 September, the fire and plume against the full facility footprint and its airstrip · SWIR false colour R:B12 G:B08 B:B04 · 20 m/px · open full resolution ↗

Caption

Sentinel-2 imagery of a Saudi Aramco oil processing facility in the Khurais production area of eastern Saudi Arabia. On 10 September, news reports described strikes and fires at Saudi oil facilities; this imagery corroborates a fire at this facility and localises it — the 8 September overpass shows the plant intact with only routine flares, and the 13 September overpass, 07:16 UTC, shows shortwave-infrared-saturated combustion at the western processing trains with a heavy black smoke plume drifting south-west. Shortwave-infrared frames are false colour (R:B12 G:B08 B:B04); each frame is stretched independently. Imagery: Copernicus Sentinel-2 (open data) via Microsoft Planetary Computer, rendered by NewsplanetAI.

Claim boundary

Band 12 saturates on high-temperature combustion, so the marked source is an active fire present on the 13 September overpass and absent on 8 September — the imagery shows a fire burning here, not its cause or who is responsible. Each frame is a single instant; detail below the 10-metre pixel is not resolved.