How long did the Akerrou fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 13 July 2017 and 14 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 120 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Akerrou (118 ha, 2.6 %); Aghrib (2 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 km of Akerrou. 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 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.

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 · 2017-07-13 → 2017-07-14

Akerrou fire, July 2017 أقرو · Akerrou, Aghrib

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2017, 01:59 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2017 in Akerrou, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 120 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 40th largest in Tizi Ouzou since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 146 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 120ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 13 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 13 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 13; in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start: 31; High · FWI index
Energy released: 16MW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Jul 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1415

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

37km/h · peak gust

37%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 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

Akerrou أقرو 4,660 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the town where it started

118 ha reached on 14 Jul

2.6 %
Aghrib أغريب 12,474 inhabitants · 6.7 km from the town

2 ha reached on 16 Jul

0.0 %

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 forest62 %
Other natural land38 %

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)
13 Jul	32.1 °C	37 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
14 Jul	29.4 °C	51 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
15 Jul after	27.5 °C	50 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
16 Jul after	27.0 °C	39 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Jul after	27.5 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
18 Jul after	31.3 °C	33 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
19 Jul after	33.1 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.3 mm	High 31
20 Jul after	29.3 °C	45 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
21 Jul after	27.9 °C	49 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Jul after	30.3 °C	51 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
23 Jul after	33.6 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
24 Jul after	28.5 °C	58 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Jul 2017

After · 21 Jul 2017

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 12 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak47 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1073 µg/m³

WHO 15

111213141516171819

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 · 13Every 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 Akerrou fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 13 July 2017 and 14 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 120 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Akerrou (118 ha, 2.6 %); Aghrib (2 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 km of Akerrou. 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 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
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?

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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