How long did the Chekfa fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 10 August 2021 and 15 August 2021: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,892 hectares (18.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 5 municipalities: El Kennar Nouchfi (522 ha, 16 %); Bordj Tahar (503 ha, 9.9 %); Sidi Abdelaziz (366 ha, 8.4 %); Chekfa (313 ha, 5.1 %); Djemaa Beni Habibi (192 ha, 4.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.4 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 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · 2021-08-10 → 2021-08-15

Chekfa fire, August 2021 الشقفة · El Kennar Nouchfi, Bordj Tahar, Sidi Abdelaziz

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2021, 13:27 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2021 in Chekfa, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,892 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Jijel since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 17 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

Burnt area: 1,892ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 10 Aug 2021 – 15 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 5; communes
Started on: 10 Aug; 2021
Heat detections: 125; in a single hotspot: 151 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 2.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Aug 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

10111213141516

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

40km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 23 Aug.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 311 ha in 2017, 16 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

El Kennar Nouchfi القنار 15,852 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the town

522 ha reached on 10 Aug

16 %
Bordj Tahar برج الطهر 3,889 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town

503 ha reached on 10 Aug

9.9 %
Sidi Abdelaziz سيدي عبد العزيز 10,153 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the town

366 ha reached on 12 Aug

8.4 %
Chekfa الشقفة 26,553 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town where it started

313 ha reached on 10 Aug

5.1 %
Djemaa Beni Habibi الجمعة بني حبيبي 14,652 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the town

192 ha reached on 12 Aug

4.4 %

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 forest90 %
Other natural land7.7 %
Coniferous forest1.5 %
Broadleaved forest0.5 %

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	38.3 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 44
11 Aug	37.5 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Aug	38.0 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
13 Aug	33.9 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
14 Aug	33.3 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
15 Aug	34.8 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
16 Aug after	35.3 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
17 Aug after	28.4 °C	63 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
18 Aug after	26.4 °C	55 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
19 Aug after	31.9 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Aug after	30.3 °C	53 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
21 Aug after	32.0 °C	37 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
22 Aug after	33.1 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
23 Aug after	33.8 °C	27 %	34 km/h	1.2 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Aug 2021

After · 22 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.

Detections table · 125Every 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 10 August 2021 and 15 August 2021: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,892 hectares (18.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 5 municipalities: El Kennar Nouchfi (522 ha, 16 %); Bordj Tahar (503 ha, 9.9 %); Sidi Abdelaziz (366 ha, 8.4 %); Chekfa (313 ha, 5.1 %); Djemaa Beni Habibi (192 ha, 4.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.4 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 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

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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