El Tarf fire, 29 July 2020 الطارف · El Tarf, Al Qala
The fire started on 29 July 2020 in El Tarf, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 367 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 51th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 84 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.
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- Burnt area
- 367ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 29 Jul 2020 – 31 Jul 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 29 Jul
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 19
- in a single hotspot: 201 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.8GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
31 Jul 2020 · 1,828 MW · 19
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 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 157 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
210 ha reached on 31 Jul1.8 %
-
158 ha reached on 31 Jul0.6 %
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 forest79 %
- Other natural land16 %
- Agricultural areas4.6 %
Protected area affected (EFFIS layer): 100 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Jul | 38.7 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 1 Aug after | 35.9 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Aug after | 36.3 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 3 Aug after | 32.9 °C | 47 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Aug after | 29.3 °C | 52 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Aug after | 28.8 °C | 44 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 6 Aug after | 29.2 °C | 48 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Aug after | 29.5 °C | 48 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 51 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 45 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 39 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
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 1 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 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 · 19Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the El Tarf fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2020 to 31 July 2020 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 July 2020 to 31 July 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 367 hectares (3.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: El Tarf (210 ha, 1.8 %); Al Qala (158 ha, 0.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in El Tarf and came within 5.1 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 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 31 July 2020 to 31 July 2020. 19 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.
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.