How long did the Chefia fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2021 and 1 August 2021: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 425 hectares (4.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chefia (406 ha, 2.1 %); Zitouna (19 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.3 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 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2021-07-30 → 2021-08-01

Chefia fire, July 2021 الشافية · Chefia, Zitouna

Out · last detection 1 Aug 2021, 01:47 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2021 in Chefia, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 425 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 46th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 38 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

Burnt area: 425ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 30 Jul 2021 – 1 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 30 Jul; 2021
Heat detections: 32; in a single hotspot: 198 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Aug 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul1 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

30311

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

45km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 58 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 44 ha in 2016, 2 ha in 2017.

44 ha Chefia fire, August 2016 202 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Chefia الشافية 8,195 inhabitants · 5.3 km from the town where it started

406 ha reached on 30 Jul

2.1 %
Zitouna الزيتونة 9,736 inhabitants · 5.8 km from the town

19 ha

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 forest97 %
Agricultural areas2.1 %
Other natural land0.9 %

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	33.0 °C	47 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
31 Jul	35.7 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
1 Aug	29.6 °C	46 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Aug after	28.8 °C	53 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
3 Aug after	36.6 °C	31 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
4 Aug after	28.4 °C	60 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
5 Aug after	29.3 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
6 Aug after	31.9 °C	42 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 Aug after	37.6 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
8 Aug after	32.8 °C	41 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Aug after	36.0 °C	35 %	30 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
10 Aug after	41.3 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
11 Aug after	38.4 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 23 Jul 2021

After · 8 Aug 2021

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 31 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1061 µg/m³

WHO 15

282930311234

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 · 32Every 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 Chefia fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2021 and 1 August 2021: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 425 hectares (4.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chefia (406 ha, 2.1 %); Zitouna (19 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.3 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 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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