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Bouteldja fire, 31 July 2017 بوثلجة · Zitouna, Bouteldja, El Tarf

Out · last detection 2 Aug 2017, 01:22 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2017 in Bouteldja, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 110 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 109th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 157 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area
110ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
31 Jul 2017 – 1 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
31 Jul
2017
Heat detections
21
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
221MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul1 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
34km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 11 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Zitouna الزيتونة 9,736 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the town
    64 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.4 %
  2. Bouteldja بوثلجة 17,738 inhabitants · 24.5 km from the town where it started
    35 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.3 %
  3. El Tarf الطارف 25,594 inhabitants · 9.5 km from the town
    12 ha reached on 4 Aug
    0.1 %

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 land27 %

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)
31 Jul 38.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Aug 37.5 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Aug after 34.4 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Aug after 37.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Aug after 37.3 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Aug after 32.8 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Aug after 32.7 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Aug after 32.7 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Aug after 36.0 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Aug after 34.8 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug after 28.4 °C 63 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Aug after 26.0 °C 53 % 40 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2017
After · 8 Aug 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.

Detections table · 21Every 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 Bouteldja fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 31 July 2017 and 1 August 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 110 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Zitouna (64 ha, 0.4 %); Bouteldja (35 ha, 0.3 %); El Tarf (12 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.7 km of Zitouna. 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 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.