Aokas fire, September 2023 أوقاس · Aokas, Souk El Tenine, Taskriout
The fire started on 16 September 2023 in Aokas, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 338 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 45th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 31 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.3 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
- 338ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 16 Sept 2023 – 17 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 16 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 126MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 22 Sept.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 173 ha in 2017, 143 ha in 2019, 292 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 294 ha that had burned before.
- 292 ha Aokas fire, August 2021 726 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 173 ha Aokas fire, July 2017 236 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 143 ha Aokas fire, August 2019 1,780 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
313 ha reached on 16 Sept11 %
-
13 ha0.5 %
-
13 ha0.4 %
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
- Other natural land72 %
- Mixed forest28 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Sept | 30.3 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 17 Sept | 34.8 °C | 19 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 19 Sept after | 29.0 °C | 36 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 38 % | 43 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Sept after | 28.0 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Sept after | 26.0 °C | 46 % | 34 km/h | 2.1 mm | Low 10 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 18 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 17Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aokas fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 16 September 2023 and 17 September 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 338 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Aokas (313 ha, 11 %); Souk El Tenine (13 ha, 0.5 %); Taskriout (13 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.2 km of Aokas. 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 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
Satellite cross-check
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
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.