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Bougara fire, July 2017 Bougara, Baata

Out · last detection 20 Jul 2017, 13:26 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2017 in Bougara, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 189 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 25th largest in Blida since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 98 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area
189ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
20 Jul 2017 – 20 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
20 Jul
2017
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
243MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul20 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

20

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
35km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 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. Bougara where it started
    157 ha reached on 20 Jul
    1.8 %
  2. Baata بعطة 856 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the town
    32 ha reached on 20 Jul
    0.3 %

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 forest63 %
  • Other natural land37 %

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)
20 Jul 31.7 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jul after 28.7 °C 47 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Jul after 33.0 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jul after 35.5 °C 23 % 53 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
24 Jul after 30.4 °C 42 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul after 30.2 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jul after 29.1 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Jul after 30.8 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Jul after 36.8 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Jul after 33.7 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jul after 34.5 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2017
After · 27 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 22 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1062 µg/m³
181920212223
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 · 7Every 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 Bougara fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2017 and 20 July 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 189 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bougara (157 ha, 1.8 %); Baata (32 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.2 km of Baata. 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 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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.