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Ain Ben Beida fire, August 2021 عين بن بيضاء · Ain Ben Beida, Chihani

Out · last measured on 10 Aug 2021

The fire started on 10 August 2021 in Ain Ben Beida, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 681 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Annaba since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 31 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ain Ben Beida · 2017Ain Ben Beida · 2019Beni Salah · 2021Boucheghouf · 2017

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
681ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
10 Aug 2021 – 10 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
10 Aug
2021
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

46°high
41km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 143 ha in 2017, 28 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.4% of the area of London (6.8 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ain Ben Beida عين بن بيضاء 9,492 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the centre where it started
    612 ha
    4.6 %
  2. Chihani الشيحاني 10,094 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the centre
    71 ha
    0.4 %

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

  • Mixed forest75 %
  • Other natural land24 %
  • Agricultural areas0.6 %

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)
10 Aug 46.5 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
11 Aug after 45.2 °C 9 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Aug after 43.4 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Aug after 40.8 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Aug after 37.1 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Aug after 38.6 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Aug after 40.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Aug after 33.3 °C 47 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug after 30.7 °C 44 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug after 32.4 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug after 33.6 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2021
After · 17 Aug 2021

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 13 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1087 µg/m³
8910111213
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 Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ain Ben Beida fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 August 2021 and 10 August 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 681 hectares (6.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ain Ben Beida (612 ha, 4.6 %); Chihani (71 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Ain Ben Beida and came within 1.4 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 46.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 41 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 Algeria (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: 14 · 1021 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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
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 14 · 1021.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 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.

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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0). 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.