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DZ · Algeria · –

El Hassania fire, July 2019 الحسنية، عين الدفلى · El Hassania, Theniet El Had

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2019, 13:08 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2019 in El Hassania, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 223 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 23th largest in Aïn Defla since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 48 in Algeria in 2019, of 78.

Burnt area
223ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
25 Jul 2019 – 27 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
25 Jul
2019
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
53MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul27 Jul
27 Jul 2019

How it evolved, day by day

25 Jul 2019 · 7 MW · 1 26 Jul 2019 · 63 MW · 7 27 Jul 2019 · 90 MW · 3
25 Jul 26 Jul 27 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
56km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 1 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. El Hassania الحسنية، عين الدفلى 4,037 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the centre where it started
    123 ha reached on 25 Jul
    0.8 %
  2. Theniet El Had ثنية الأحد 30,777 inhabitants · 9.1 km from the centre
    101 ha reached on 26 Jul
    0.4 %

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 forest86 %
  • Other natural land10 %
  • Broadleaved forest3.2 %

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)
25 Jul 38.8 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.9 mm Very high 41
26 Jul 36.4 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Jul 31.5 °C 18 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
28 Jul after 32.5 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Jul after 35.4 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jul after 36.1 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Jul after 42.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Aug after 40.0 °C 19 % 44 km/h 1.6 mm Extreme 64

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 41.1, a minimum humidity of 18% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 28.

FWI at the start 41.1
Minimum humidity 18 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Zoubiria fire, August 2019
346 ha 6 days FWI 39.4 Min. humidity 19 % 77 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 27 Aug.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
194 ha
median area
11 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 28 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (223 ha against a median of 194 ha) and lasted 3 days, against 3 days.

In 15 of 28, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.4 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.6 mmfirst rain
1 Aug5 days after it ended
56km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 Jul, and on 1 Aug 1.6 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 28, with a median of 1.4 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jul 2019
After · 3 Aug 2019

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 26 July 2019 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1051 µg/m³
23 Jul25 Jul27 Jul29 Jul
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 · 11Every 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 El Hassania fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 25 July 2019 and 27 July 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 223 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: El Hassania (123 ha, 0.8 %); Theniet El Had (101 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in El Hassania and came within 4.1 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 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 28. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 194 ha; 11 % went past 1,000 ha. In 15 of 28, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.4 mm.

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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 11 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.