How long did the Ammi Moussa fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2016 to 23 August 2016 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2016 to 20 August 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 196 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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 · 2016-08-19 → 2016-08-23

Ammi Moussa fire, August 2016 عمي موسى · Algeria

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2016, 00:51 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2016 in Ammi Moussa, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 196 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

Number 39 in Algeria in 2016, of 62.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ramka · 2020 Lardjem · 2016 Lardjem · 2019 Lardjem · 2020

Burnt area: 196ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 5days; 19 Aug 2016 – 23 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit: 0; communes
Started on: 19 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 16; in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 58MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug23 Aug

Play back 22 Aug 2016

How it evolved, day by day

19 Aug 20 Aug 21 Aug 22 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

41km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 30 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What burned

Mixed forest82 %
Other natural land18 %

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)
19 Aug	37.7 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
20 Aug	38.3 °C	21 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
21 Aug	35.8 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
22 Aug	35.1 °C	34 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
23 Aug	34.3 °C	28 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Aug after	35.2 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Aug after	34.7 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
26 Aug after	34.8 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
27 Aug after	36.1 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
28 Aug after	38.0 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
29 Aug after	38.3 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
30 Aug after	34.9 °C	29 %	37 km/h	1.2 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Aug 2016

After · 30 Aug 2016

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 19 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1076 µg/m³

WHO 15

171819202122232425

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 · 16Every 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 Ammi Moussa fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2016 to 23 August 2016 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2016 to 20 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 196 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 August 2016 to 20 August 2016. 16 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.

Where it burned