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Berrihane fire, August 2021 بريحان · Berrihane

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2021, 13:21 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2021 in Berrihane, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 331 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 43 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.4 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
331ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
10 Aug 2021 – 11 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
10 Aug
2021
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
49MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

11

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

The weather it burned in

44°high
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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

  1. Berrihane بريحان 9,605 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the town where it started
    332 ha reached on 11 Aug
    1.6 %

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 forest93 %
  • Other natural land6.9 %

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)
10 Aug 43.9 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Aug 40.8 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Aug after 38.8 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Aug after 36.5 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Aug after 33.7 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug after 34.8 °C 44 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Aug after 37.3 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Aug after 31.1 °C 62 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Aug after 29.4 °C 52 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Aug after 30.5 °C 54 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Aug after 31.1 °C 59 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Aug after 32.2 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2021
After · 18 Aug 2021

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 13 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1089 µg/m³
891011121314
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 · 10Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Berrihane fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 August 2021 and 11 August 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 331 hectares (3.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Berrihane (332 ha, 1.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.7 km of Berrihane. 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 43.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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

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?

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.