How long did the Berrahal fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 27 October 2022 and 27 October 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,572 hectares (15.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Berrahal (1,575 ha, 8.7 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 35.1 km of Berrahal. 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 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 19 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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 · 2022-10-27 → 2022-10-27

Berrahal fire, October 2022 برحال · Berrahal

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2022, 13:34 UTC

The fire started on 27 October 2022 in Berrahal, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,572 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Annaba since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 11 in Algeria in 2022, of 58.

Burnt area: 1,572ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 27 Oct 2022 – 27 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 27 Oct; 2022
Heat detections: 53; in a single hotspot: 180 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 983MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Oct27 Oct

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

32°high

19km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.7 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 175 ha in 2017, 1,418 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,513 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Berrahal برحال 22,631 inhabitants · 35.1 km from the town where it started

1,575 ha reached on 27 Oct

8.7 %

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 land85 %
Agricultural areas14 %
Mixed forest1.1 %

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)
27 Oct	31.5 °C	17 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Oct after	31.6 °C	19 %	14 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 Oct after	30.4 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
30 Oct after	30.7 °C	19 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Oct after	29.7 °C	22 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Nov after	28.7 °C	28 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
2 Nov after	28.9 °C	27 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
3 Nov after	32.2 °C	15 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
4 Nov after	26.6 °C	37 %	44 km/h	7.7 mm	Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Oct 2022

After · 3 Nov 2022

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 28 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1028 µg/m³

Optical depth0.23

WHO 15

252627282930

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 · 53Every 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 Berrahal fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 27 October 2022 and 27 October 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,572 hectares (15.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Berrahal (1,575 ha, 8.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 35.1 km of Berrahal. 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 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 19 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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

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