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DZ · Algeria · –

Ain Zana fire, 11 July 2017 عين زانة · Ain Zana

Out · last detection 12 Jul 2017, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 11 July 2017 in Ain Zana, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 248 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

Number 74 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area
248ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
11 Jul 2017 – 12 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
11 Jul
2017
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
210MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jul12 Jul
12 Jul 2017

How it evolved, day by day

11 Jul 2017 · 412 MW · 6 12 Jul 2017 · 9 MW · 1
11 Jul 12 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
38km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 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. Ain Zana عين زانة 7,499 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre where it started
    249 ha reached on 11 Jul
    1.5 %

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

  • Other natural land49 %
  • Mixed forest46 %
  • Broadleaved forest4.8 %

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)
11 Jul 40.0 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Jul 37.7 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Jul after 33.8 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Jul after 31.9 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Jul after 30.0 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jul after 28.2 °C 44 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jul after 28.7 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Jul after 32.0 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Jul after 33.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41
20 Jul after 36.1 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Jul after 34.6 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 40
22 Jul after 34.6 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.5 mm High 28

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 49.3, a minimum humidity of 18% and 13 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 26.

FWI at the start 49.3
Minimum humidity 18 %
Days without rain 13
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ain Zana fire, July 2020
119 ha 2 days FWI 49.4 Min. humidity 17 % 10 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
223 ha
median area
8 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 26 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (248 ha against a median of 223 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

In 10 of 26, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.4 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
38km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 26, with a median of 1.4 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jul 2017
After · 19 Jul 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 11 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 41 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak41 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1053 µg/m³
9 Jul11 Jul13 Jul15 Jul
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)

Detections table · 7Every 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 Algeria

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ain Zana fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 11 July 2017 and 12 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 248 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ain Zana (249 ha, 1.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Ain Zana and came within 3.6 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 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 26. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 223 ha; 8 % went past 1,000 ha. In 10 of 26, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.4 mm.

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.

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. 7 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.