Skip to content
worldfires
DZ · Algeria · →

Chefia fire, 10 August 2021 الشافية · Zitouna, Chefia, Bouteldja

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2021, 13:02 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2021 in Chefia, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,760 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 13 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

Burnt area
2,760ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
10 Aug 2021 – 13 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
10 Aug
2021
Heat detections
178
in a single hotspot: 294 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
9.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

101112

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
38km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 135 ha in 2016, 788 ha in 2017, 24 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Zitouna الزيتونة 9,736 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town
    1,857 ha reached on 10 Aug
    11 %
  2. Chefia الشافية 8,195 inhabitants · 6.9 km from the town where it started
    891 ha reached on 10 Aug
    4.6 %
  3. Bouteldja بوثلجة 17,738 inhabitants · 14.3 km from the town
    18 ha reached on 10 Aug
    0.2 %

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 forest76 %
  • Other natural land22 %
  • Agricultural areas0.9 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.6 %

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)
10 Aug 42.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Aug 39.2 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Aug 37.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Aug 35.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug after 32.1 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug after 33.4 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Aug after 36.0 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Aug after 29.2 °C 61 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Aug after 27.7 °C 52 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Aug after 29.4 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
20 Aug after 29.6 °C 58 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
21 Aug after 30.8 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Aug after 31.3 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Aug after 33.3 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2021
After · 20 Aug 2021

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 · 178Every 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 10 August 2021 and 13 August 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,760 hectares (27.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Zitouna (1,857 ha, 11 %); Chefia (891 ha, 4.6 %); Bouteldja (18 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.9 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 42.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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
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.