How long did the Beni Bouattab fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 13 July 2017 and 14 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 161 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Beni Bouattab (162 ha, 1.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.6 km of Beni Bouattab. 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 41.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.

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 · 2017-07-13 → 2017-07-14

Beni Bouattab fire, 13 July 2017 بني بوعتاب · Beni Bouattab

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2017, 02:00 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2017 in Beni Bouattab, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 161 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 28th largest in Aïn Defla since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 123 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.1 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: 161ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 13 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 13 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 9; in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start: 56; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 62MW; sum of detected power

Play back 15 Jul 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1415

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

The weather it burned in

42°high

42km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 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

Beni Bouattab بني بوعتاب 2,069 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the town where it started

162 ha reached on 14 Jul

1.3 %

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 forest96 %
Broadleaved forest3.6 %
Other natural land0.6 %

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)
13 Jul	41.9 °C	14 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
14 Jul	41.9 °C	12 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
15 Jul after	37.2 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
16 Jul after	36.5 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
17 Jul after	37.2 °C	18 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
18 Jul after	38.3 °C	16 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
19 Jul after	39.4 °C	18 %	45 km/h	0.7 mm	Extreme 51
20 Jul after	37.7 °C	18 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
21 Jul after	35.1 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
22 Jul after	38.4 °C	28 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Jul after	39.2 °C	20 %	45 km/h	0.7 mm	Very high 45
24 Jul after	36.2 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Jul 2017

After · 21 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 12 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1054 µg/m³

WHO 15

1112131415161718

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 · 9Every 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 Beni Bouattab fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 13 July 2017 and 14 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 161 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Beni Bouattab (162 ha, 1.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.6 km of Beni Bouattab. 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 41.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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