Skip to content
worldfires
DZ · Algeria · →

Chefia fire, 12 July 2017 الشافية · Chefia

Out · last detection 13 Jul 2017, 12:17 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2017 in Chefia, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 102 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 118th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 168 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

The power measured by the satellite is low (21.6 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
102ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
12 Jul 2017 – 13 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
12 Jul
2017
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
57MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul13 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1213

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
34km/h · peak gust
38%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 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. Chefia الشافية 8,195 inhabitants · 6.4 km from the town where it started
    102 ha reached on 12 Jul
    0.5 %

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 forest81 %
  • Other natural land19 %

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)
12 Jul 33.2 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Jul 31.3 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Jul after 30.1 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Jul after 29.5 °C 47 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Jul after 28.6 °C 59 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Jul after 28.1 °C 52 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Jul after 31.2 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Jul after 32.4 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Jul after 35.5 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul after 33.0 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Jul after 31.0 °C 61 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Jul after 33.7 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2017
After · 20 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 13 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1054 µg/m³
10111213141516
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 · 8Every 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 Chefia fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 July 2017 and 13 July 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 102 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chefia (102 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.4 km of Chefia. 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 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.