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Boghar fire, August 2016 بوغار · Boghar

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2016, 12:50 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2016 in Boghar, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 116 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 60 in Algeria in 2016, of 62.

Burnt area
116ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
4 Aug 2016 – 4 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
4 Aug
2016
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
183MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

4

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 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

  1. Boghar بوغار 5,972 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town where it started
    116 ha reached on 4 Aug
    0.9 %

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 forest73 %
  • Other natural land15 %
  • Broadleaved forest9.3 %
  • Agricultural areas2.5 %

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)
4 Aug 35.7 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 48
5 Aug after 33.1 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Aug after 28.6 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Aug after 27.4 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug after 28.6 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Aug after 32.1 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug after 28.4 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Aug after 28.3 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Aug after 28.7 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Aug after 30.8 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug after 32.4 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2016
After · 11 Aug 2016

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 2 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1055 µg/m³
234567
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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Boghar fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 4 August 2016 and 4 August 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 116 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Boghar (116 ha, 0.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.2 km of Boghar. 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 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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

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.