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Es Sebt fire, August 2022 السبت · Roknia, Es Sebt, Bekkouche Lakhdar

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2022, 12:18 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2022 in Es Sebt, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 168 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 69th largest in Skikda since 2016 (of 102 with a page). Number 41 in Algeria in 2022, of 58.

Burnt area
168ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
12 Aug 2022 – 12 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
12 Aug
2022
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
230MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
32km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 15 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. Roknia بلدية الركنية 9,752 inhabitants · 8.0 km from the town
    86 ha
    0.4 %
  2. Es Sebt السبت 15,266 inhabitants · 10.0 km from the town where it started
    61 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.2 %
  3. Bekkouche Lakhdar بكوش لخضر 15,176 inhabitants · 16.5 km from the town
    21 ha
    0.1 %

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 forest85 %
  • Other natural land15 %

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 34.2 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Aug after 38.1 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Aug after 39.5 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Aug after 38.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 1.1 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2022
After · 19 Aug 2022

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 15 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1055 µg/m³
Optical depth0.97
101112131415
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 · 4Every 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 Es Sebt fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2022 and 12 August 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 168 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Roknia (86 ha, 0.4 %); Es Sebt (61 ha, 0.2 %); Bekkouche Lakhdar (21 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.0 km of Roknia. 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 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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.