How long did the Bouhadjar fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2017 and 2 August 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 782 hectares (7.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bouhadjar (560 ha, 6.0 %); Aïn Kerma (224 ha, 2.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.1 km of Bouhadjar. 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 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2017-07-30 → 2017-08-02

Bouhadjar fire, July 2017 بوحجّار · Bouhadjar, Aïn Kerma

Out · last detection 3 Aug 2017, 01:03 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2017 in Bouhadjar, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 782 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 24th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 23 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area: 782ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 30 Jul 2017 – 2 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 30 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 52; in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 846MW; sum of detected power

Play back 3 Aug 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul2 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

3031123

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

46km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

Bouhadjar بوحجّار 20,215 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the town where it started

560 ha reached on 30 Jul

6.0 %
Aïn Kerma عين الكرمة 14,377 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the town

224 ha reached on 31 Jul

2.0 %

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 forest56 %
Other natural land43 %

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)
30 Jul	37.8 °C	18 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
31 Jul	40.1 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
1 Aug	39.6 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
2 Aug	38.1 °C	12 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
3 Aug after	38.7 °C	11 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
4 Aug after	39.6 °C	11 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
5 Aug after	36.8 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
6 Aug after	37.2 °C	18 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
7 Aug after	34.9 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Aug after	38.8 °C	15 %	25 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 43
9 Aug after	38.9 °C	13 %	42 km/h	0.4 mm	Extreme 54
10 Aug after	29.6 °C	49 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Aug after	26.6 °C	47 %	48 km/h	0.6 mm	High 25
12 Aug after	23.1 °C	52 %	35 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 19
13 Aug after	29.2 °C	38 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
14 Aug after	34.2 °C	35 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 23 Jul 2017

After · 9 Aug 2017

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 5 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 151 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 82: 5.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak151 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM10161 µg/m³

WHO 15

282930311234567

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 · 52Every 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 Bouhadjar fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2017 and 2 August 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 782 hectares (7.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bouhadjar (560 ha, 6.0 %); Aïn Kerma (224 ha, 2.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.1 km of Bouhadjar. 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 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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

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?

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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