Bouteldja fire, August 2022 بوثلجة · Al Qala, Bouteldja, El Tarf
The fire started on 17 August 2022 in Bouteldja, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 6,415 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). The largest in Algeria in 2022, of 58.
The power measured by the satellite is low (3.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 6,415ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 17 Aug 2022 – 18 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- communes
- Started on
- 17 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 3 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 17MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 116 ha in 2017, 156 ha in 2019, 170 ha in 2020.
- 121 ha Bouteldja fire, August 2019 185 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 113 ha El Tarf fire, July 2020 367 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 72 ha Al Qala fire, July 2017 229 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6 ha Bouteldja fire, July 2017 140 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6 ha El Tarf fire, July 2020 334 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha El Tarf fire, July 2017 169 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
3,443 ha reached on 18 Aug12 %
-
1,475 ha reached on 17 Aug13 %
-
1,383 ha12 %
-
125 ha1.3 %
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 forest85 %
- Other natural land9.3 %
- Agricultural areas3.9 %
- Broadleaved forest0.6 %
- Artificial surfaces0.6 %
Protected area affected (EFFIS layer): 82 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
Checked against the press
Checked on 29 September 2026We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- incendies d'El Tarf · feux de forêt à El Tarf · incendies d'El Kala
- Official area reported: 5,670 ha (the satellite measured 6,415 ha)
Sources
- La wilaya d'El Tarf panse ses blessures — L'Express Algérie, 24 August 2022
- Incendies de forêts à El Tarf : le wali donne le bilan — Algérie Eco, 23 August 2022
- Le wali d'El Tarf dresse un bilan provisoire des feux de forêt — El Watan, 23 August 2022
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Aug | 36.4 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 15 Aug | 38.1 °C | 27 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Aug | 37.7 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 38 |
| 17 Aug | 42.2 °C | 18 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 18 Aug | 32.4 °C | 46 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 48 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 45 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 41 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 48 % | 44 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 49 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 55 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 25 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 53 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 40 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Aug after | 31.7 °C | 47 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 28 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 55 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Aug after | 33.0 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Aug after | 35.5 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 31 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 45 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 18 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 9Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bouteldja fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 17 August 2022 and 18 August 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,415 hectares (64.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Al Qala (3,443 ha, 12 %); Bouteldja (1,475 ha, 13 %); El Tarf (1,383 ha, 12 %); Aïn El Assel (125 ha, 1.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of El Tarf. 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 18 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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
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.