How long did the Ben Allel fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 11 July 2017 and 13 July 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 693 hectares (6.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ben Allel (502 ha, 3.5 %); Menaceur (34 ha, 0.2 %); Merad (0 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.7 km of Menaceur. 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 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 32 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2017-07-11 → 2017-07-13

Ben Allel fire, July 2017 بن علال، عين الدفلى · Ben Allel, Menaceur, Merad

Out · last detection 14 Jul 2017, 11:59 UTC

The fire started on 11 July 2017 in Ben Allel, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 693 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Tipaza since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 26 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area: 693ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 11 Jul 2017 – 13 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit: 3; communes
Started on: 11 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 64; in a single hotspot: 190 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 14 Jul 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jul13 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

11121314

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

32km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 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

Ben Allel بن علال، عين الدفلى 9,068 inhabitants · 11.0 km from the town where it started

502 ha reached on 11 Jul

3.5 %
Menaceur مناصر 25,480 inhabitants · 6.7 km from the town

34 ha reached on 11 Jul

0.2 %
Merad مَراد 19,916 inhabitants · 17.6 km from the town

0 ha

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

Other natural land74 %
Mixed forest26 %

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 Jul	31.1 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Jul	29.9 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
13 Jul	29.3 °C	36 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
14 Jul after	27.9 °C	44 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
15 Jul after	24.3 °C	63 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
16 Jul after	25.2 °C	39 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Jul after	24.8 °C	46 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
18 Jul after	28.7 °C	35 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 Jul after	31.9 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
20 Jul after	26.5 °C	39 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
21 Jul after	24.3 °C	53 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
22 Jul after	24.7 °C	60 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
23 Jul after	26.3 °C	64 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Jul 2017

After · 20 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 11 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 114 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak114 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM10122 µg/m³

WHO 15

91011121314151617

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 · 64Every 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 Ben Allel fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 11 July 2017 and 13 July 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 693 hectares (6.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ben Allel (502 ha, 3.5 %); Menaceur (34 ha, 0.2 %); Merad (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.7 km of Menaceur. 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 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 32 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

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

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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