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Cherchell fire, October 2020 Cherchell

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2020, 13:14 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2020 in Cherchell, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 208 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Tipaza since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 137 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

The power measured by the satellite is low (21.8 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
208ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
21 Oct 2020 – 22 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
21 Oct
2020
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
50MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct22 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

22

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
54km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.4 mm on 26 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Cherchell where it started
    208 ha reached on 22 Oct
    1.7 %

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

  • Other natural land68 %
  • Mixed forest30 %
  • Agricultural areas1.9 %

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)
21 Oct 27.2 °C 26 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Oct 28.0 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Oct after 23.8 °C 56 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
24 Oct after 22.6 °C 55 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
25 Oct after 24.2 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
26 Oct after 19.6 °C 60 % 60 km/h 14.4 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Oct 2020
After · 29 Oct 2020

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 23 October 2020 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak50 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1094 µg/m³
19202122232425
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 · 3Every 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 Cherchell fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 21 October 2020 and 22 October 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 208 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cherchell (208 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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.