How long did the Ain Zerga fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 4 July 2022 and 7 July 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,503 hectares (25.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ain Zerga (1,204 ha, 3.3 %); Morsott (923 ha, 2.6 %); Boulhaf Dir (381 ha, 2.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.6 km of Morsott. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2022-07-04 → 2022-07-07

Ain Zerga fire, July 2022 عين الزرقاء · Ain Zerga, Morsott, Boulhaf Dir

Out · last detection 7 Jul 2022, 11:52 UTC

The fire started on 4 July 2022 in Ain Zerga, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,503 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 6 in Algeria in 2022, of 58.

Burnt area: 2,503ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 4 Jul 2022 – 7 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit: 3; communes
Started on: 4 Jul; 2022
Heat detections: 130; in a single hotspot: 252 MW
Danger at start: 65; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 2.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 7 Jul 2022

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jul7 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

4567

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

54km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 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

Ain Zerga عين الزرقاء 20,170 inhabitants · 10.9 km from the town where it started

1,204 ha reached on 4 Jul

3.3 %
Morsott مرسط 17,238 inhabitants · 8.6 km from the town

923 ha reached on 5 Jul

2.6 %
Boulhaf Dir بولحاف الدير 4,741 inhabitants · 11.3 km from the town

381 ha reached on 5 Jul

2.2 %

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

Mixed forest73 %
Other natural land24 %
Broadleaved forest2.6 %

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)
4 Jul	35.7 °C	12 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
5 Jul	36.4 °C	12 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 72
6 Jul	36.5 °C	10 %	54 km/h	0.4 mm	Extreme 65
7 Jul	34.1 °C	14 %	54 km/h	0.1 mm	Very extreme 70
8 Jul after	28.0 °C	27 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
9 Jul after	28.4 °C	20 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
10 Jul after	28.4 °C	14 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Jul after	30.9 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
12 Jul after	32.8 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
13 Jul after	32.6 °C	14 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
14 Jul after	30.0 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
15 Jul after	29.8 °C	14 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
16 Jul after	31.7 °C	13 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
17 Jul after	33.7 °C	12 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Jun 2022

After · 14 Jul 2022

Before After

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 6 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1063 µg/m³

WHO 15

2345678910

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 · 130Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ain Zerga fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 4 July 2022 and 7 July 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,503 hectares (25.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ain Zerga (1,204 ha, 3.3 %); Morsott (923 ha, 2.6 %); Boulhaf Dir (381 ha, 2.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.6 km of Morsott. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

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.

Where it burned