Burned area
satellite only3,720ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 3 August 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
DZ · Algeria · –
Beni Djellil fire, July 2023 بني جليل · Beni Djellil, Semaoun, Timezrit
Out · last detection 16 Jul 2023, 13:22 UTC
The fire started on 15 July 2023 in Beni Djellil, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,720 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 3 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only6days
15 Jul 2023 to 20 Jul 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 16 Jul 2023, 13:22 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only15 Jul 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 15 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only4
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 63 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 15 Jul 2023 – 20 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only132MW
Total radiative power on 16 July 2023; hotspots that day: 3.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 16 Jul 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model58.9FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 30.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 15 Jul 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model42.2°C · 12% RH
High of 42.2 °C and minimum humidity of 12% on 18 July 2023; gusts of 44 km/h on 15 July 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 15 Jul 2023 – 20 Jul 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 6,600people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 48 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 3,720 ha
- Dates
- 15 Jul 2023 – 20 Jul 2023
- Name
- Beni Djellil
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/beni-djellil-2023-07?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire beni-djellil-2023-07.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-07-15 | 1 | 5 | 40.4 | 24.1 | 17 | 13.2 | 43.6 | 0 | 58.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-07-16 | 3 | 132 | 39.9 | 24.9 | 19 | 7.9 | 23.8 | 0 | 51 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-07-17 | 0 | 0 | 40.4 | 22.8 | 16 | 9 | 31 | 0 | 55.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-07-18 | 0 | 0 | 42.2 | 24.1 | 12 | 6.7 | 31 | 0 | 57.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-07-19 | 0 | 0 | 41.5 | 23.2 | 14 | 10.2 | 38.5 | 0 | 63.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-07-20 | 0 | 0 | 39.2 | 24.2 | 19 | 9.7 | 32.8 | 0.1 | 54.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-07-21 | 0 | 0 | 37.1 | 23.4 | 26 | 10.9 | 33.1 | 0.3 | 48.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-07-22 | 0 | 0 | 40.2 | 24.5 | 20 | 9.4 | 37.4 | 0.2 | 47.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-07-23 | 0 | 0 | 41.9 | 23.8 | 7 | 18.8 | 56.2 | 0 | 84.1 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-07-24 | 0 | 0 | 41.7 | 28.2 | 12 | 22.3 | 68 | 0 | 93.3 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2023-07-25 | 0 | 0 | 36.4 | 24.3 | 23 | 10.8 | 43.2 | 0.6 | 50.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2023-07-26 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 21.6 | 44 | 11.9 | 35.6 | 0 | 35.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-07-27 | 0 | 0 | 35.8 | 20.1 | 33 | 9.5 | 34.9 | 0 | 32.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-07-28 | 0 | 0 | 36.9 | 25.5 | 31 | 9.5 | 40 | 0.1 | 34.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-07-29 | 0 | 0 | 36.1 | 25.3 | 43 | 9.5 | 35.3 | 0 | 35.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-07-30 | 0 | 0 | 35.5 | 24.9 | 36 | 11.3 | 32.4 | 0 | 36.2 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 3,720ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 15 Jul 2023 – 20 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- communes
- Started on
- 15 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 4
- in a single hotspot: 63 MW
- Danger at start
- 59
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 69MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
15 Jul20 Jul
16 Jul 2023
How it evolved, day by day
15 Jul
16 Jul
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
44km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity
It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21 ha in 2020, 1 ha in 2021.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,738 ha reached on 15 Jul60 %
-
952 ha29 %
-
660 ha17 %
-
375 ha reached on 16 Jul9.4 %
-
3 ha0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Other natural land57 %
- Mixed forest43 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Built-up area48 ha
Residents≈ 6,600
Inside the perimeter there were about 48 hectares of built-up land and about 6,600 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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)
Started with Extreme FWI: 48 % of the area in Algeria
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Jul | 40.4 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 16 Jul | 39.9 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 17 Jul | 40.4 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 18 Jul | 42.2 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 19 Jul | 41.5 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 20 Jul | 39.2 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 21 Jul after | 37.1 °C | 26 % | 33 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Jul after | 40.2 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 47 |
| 23 Jul after | 41.9 °C | 7 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 84 |
| 24 Jul after | 41.7 °C | 12 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 93 |
| 25 Jul after | 36.4 °C | 23 % | 43 km/h | 0.6 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Jul after | 35.8 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 28 Jul after | 36.9 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Jul after | 36.1 °C | 43 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 30 Jul after | 35.5 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 58.9, a minimum humidity of 17% and 30 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 34.
FWI at the start
58.9
Minimum humidity
17 %
Days without rain
30
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Beni Djellil fire, July 2023
3,720 ha
6 days
FWI 58.9
Min. humidity 17 %
Chigara fire, July 2026
163 ha
1 day
FWI 57.4
Min. humidity 16 %
128 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 22 Jul.
Ain Charchar fire, July 2026
14,609 ha
10 days
FWI 58.8
Min. humidity 18 %
214 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Darguina fire, July 2026
1,471 ha
14 days
FWI 56.6
Min. humidity 15 %
44 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Beni Oulbane fire, July 2026
203 ha
2 days
FWI 57.8
Min. humidity 16 %
161 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 27 Jul.
Bougaa fire, July 2026
104 ha
1 day
FWI 58.4
Min. humidity 14 %
39 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 25 Jul.
What happened to them
- 2 days
- median duration
- 202 ha
- median area
- 21 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 1.4 mm
- rain at the end (median; 21 of 34 had it)
It was 18.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 2 days.
Only 2 of its 34 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 13 of 34, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.4 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
44km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 20 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 34, with a median of 1.4 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 8 Jul 2023
After · 27 Jul 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1083 µg/m³
Optical depth0.43
WHO 15
13 Jul16 Jul19 Jul22 Jul
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 · 4Every 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
- 3,264 haToudja توجةAugust 2026 · 3 days · 19 km away
- 9,887 haToudja توجةAugust 2021 · 7 days · 20 km away
- 14,233 haTaourirt Ighil تاوريرت آغيلJuly 2023 · 8 days · 22 km away
- 6,699 haBoukhelifa بوخليفة10 August 2021 · 7 days · 25 km away
- 7,342 haZekri زكريAugust 2021 · 6 days · 26 km away
- 6,262 haIloula Oumalou إيلولة أمالوAugust 2021 · 9 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Beni Djellil fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 July 2023 and 20 July 2023: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,720 hectares (37.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Beni Djellil (1,738 ha, 60 %); Semaoun (952 ha, 29 %); Timezrit (660 ha, 17 %); M'Cisna (375 ha, 9.4 %); Amizour (3 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Beni Djellil and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 34. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 202 ha; 21 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 34 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 13 of 34, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.4 mm.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.