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Bouaichoune fire, July 2017 بوعيشون · Bouaichoune

Out · last measured on 14 Jul 2017

The fire started on 11 July 2017 in Bouaichoune, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 215 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 88 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
215ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
11 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
11 Jul
2017
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

42°high
41km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 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. Bouaichoune بوعيشون 4,309 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the town where it started
    215 ha
    2.7 %

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

  • Mixed forest59 %
  • Other natural land39 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.4 %

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)
11 Jul 42.2 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Jul 41.2 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Jul 40.4 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Jul 39.4 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Jul after 34.7 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Jul after 34.0 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jul after 34.6 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Jul after 37.3 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jul after 39.8 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 42
20 Jul after 35.9 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Jul after 32.9 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jul after 37.0 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.9 mm High 32
23 Jul after 39.9 °C 19 % 51 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 46
24 Jul after 34.1 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jul 2017
After · 21 Jul 2017

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 11 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 143 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak143 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10157 µg/m³
91011121314151617
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bouaichoune fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 11 July 2017 and 14 July 2017: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 215 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bouaichoune (215 ha, 2.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.5 km of Bouaichoune. 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 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.