How long did the Chekfa fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 19 August 2020 and 20 August 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 339 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chekfa (222 ha, 3.6 %); Bordj Tahar (118 ha, 2.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.9 km of Bordj Tahar. 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 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2020-08-19 → 2020-08-20

Chekfa fire, August 2020 الشقفة · Chekfa, Bordj Tahar

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2020, 12:55 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2020 in Chekfa, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 339 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 31th largest in Jijel since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 90 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.2 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: 339ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 19 Aug 2020 – 20 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 19 Aug; 2020
Heat detections: 18; in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 192MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug20 Aug

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

38°high

30km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 28 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Chekfa الشقفة 26,553 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the town where it started

222 ha reached on 20 Aug

3.6 %
Bordj Tahar برج الطهر 3,889 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town

118 ha reached on 20 Aug

2.3 %

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 forest66 %
Other natural land33 %
Agricultural areas0.6 %

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)
19 Aug	33.2 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Aug	38.4 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
21 Aug after	34.5 °C	38 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
22 Aug after	32.4 °C	44 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Aug after	30.0 °C	59 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
24 Aug after	29.4 °C	47 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
25 Aug after	31.8 °C	37 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
26 Aug after	32.3 °C	29 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
27 Aug after	32.7 °C	31 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
28 Aug after	35.4 °C	33 %	28 km/h	3.1 mm	Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Aug 2020

After · 27 Aug 2020

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 21 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1091 µg/m³

WHO 15

1718192021222324252627282930311

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 · 18Every 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 Chekfa fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 19 August 2020 and 20 August 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 339 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chekfa (222 ha, 3.6 %); Bordj Tahar (118 ha, 2.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.9 km of Bordj Tahar. 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 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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?

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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