Chihani fire, 12 August 2021 الشيحاني · Chihani
The fire started on 12 August 2021 in Chihani, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 101 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 119th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 91 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 101ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 12 Aug 2021 – 12 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 12 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 66
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 23MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
12 Aug 2021 · 23 MW · 1
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
101 ha reached on 12 Aug0.5 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Mixed forest88 %
- Other natural land12 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Aug | 43.1 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 13 Aug after | 40.7 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 14 Aug after | 37.2 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 15 Aug after | 38.3 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 16 Aug after | 40.1 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.3 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 17 Aug after | 33.6 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 18 Aug after | 30.4 °C | 45 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Aug after | 34.0 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Aug after | 33.8 °C | 40 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Aug after | 34.7 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Aug after | 35.3 °C | 21 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 13 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,857 haBeni Salah BoucheghoufAugust 2021 · 4 days · 10 km away
- 4,488 haBoucheghoufAugust 2017 · 6 days · 10 km away
- 9,006 haDjebala Khemissi جبالة لخميسيJuly 2026 · 5 days · 22 km away
- 20,949 haEulma العلمةAugust 2026 · 3 days · 32 km away
- 3,917 haBerrahal برحالAugust 2020 · 7 days · 34 km away
- 4,108 haOued El AnebJuly 2017 · 8 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chihani fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2021 and 12 August 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 101 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chihani (101 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Chihani and came within 5.9 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 43.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.