Bejaia fire, September 2023 بجاية · Bejaia
The fire started on 16 September 2023 in Bejaia, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 622 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 30th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 17 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.
- Burnt area
- 622ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 16 Sept 2023 – 17 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 16 Sept
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 26
- in a single hotspot: 32 MW
- Danger at start
- 10
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 275MW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 22 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
623 ha reached on 16 Sept5.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Sept | 31.0 °C | 49 % | 34 km/h | 1.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 17 Sept | 33.8 °C | 31 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Sept after | 27.8 °C | 56 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 19 Sept after | 26.8 °C | 80 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 9 |
| 20 Sept after | 29.0 °C | 62 % | 31 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 9 |
| 21 Sept after | 26.6 °C | 68 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 22 Sept after | 26.6 °C | 59 % | 37 km/h | 2.5 mm | Low 6 |
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 17 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 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 · 26Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,887 haToudja توجةAugust 2021 · 7 days · 9 km away
- 14,233 haTaourirt Ighil تاوريرت آغيلJuly 2023 · 8 days · 13 km away
- 6,699 haBoukhelifa بوخليفة10 August 2021 · 7 days · 25 km away
- 3,274 haTichy تيشيAugust 2026 · 3 days · 26 km away
- 3,720 haBeni Djellil بني جليلJuly 2023 · 6 days · 27 km away
- 7,342 haZekri زكريAugust 2021 · 6 days · 29 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bejaia 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 622 hectares (6.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bejaia (623 ha, 5.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.4 km of Bejaia. 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 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 42 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
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.