Babor fire, 11 August 2020 بابور · Babor
The fire started on 11 August 2020 in Babor, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 126 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 10th largest in Mila since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 196 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 126ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 11 Aug 2020 – 12 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 11 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 30MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 13 Aug.
This area had burned before
69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 87 ha in 2017, 30 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 87 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
126 ha reached on 11 Aug0.9 %
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 land66 %
- Mixed forest34 %
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 Aug | 30.2 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Aug | 29.7 °C | 37 % | 30 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 13 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 1.1 mm | High 23 |
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 21 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 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 · 9Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,042 haMelbou ملبوJuly 2023 · 3 days · 10 km away
- 18,731 haDarguina درقينة19 August 2026 · 13 days · 13 km away
- 3,957 haEraguene إيراقن سويسيAugust 2026 · 4 days · 16 km away
- 2,444 haTichy تيشيOctober 2023 · 5 days · 29 km away
- 3,274 haTichy تيشيAugust 2026 · 3 days · 31 km away
- 15,144 haTexenna تاكسنةAugust 2026 · 3 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Babor fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2020 to 12 August 2020 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 August 2020 to 11 August 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 126 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Babor (126 ha, 0.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.4 km of Babor. 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 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 August 2020 to 11 August 2020. 9 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.
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.