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Eulma fire, July 2016 العلمة · Eulma

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2016, 13:34 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2016 in Eulma, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 233 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 29th largest in Annaba since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 32 in Algeria in 2016, of 62.

Burnt area
233ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
22 Jul 2016 – 22 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
22 Jul
2016
Heat detections
9
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
264MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul22 Jul

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

40°high
36km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Eulma العلمة 10,316 inhabitants · 10.3 km from the town where it started
    234 ha reached on 22 Jul
    1.4 %

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 land51 %
  • Mixed forest42 %
  • Agricultural areas6.8 %

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)
22 Jul 40.3 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Jul after 29.2 °C 56 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Jul after 27.5 °C 52 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Jul after 28.9 °C 49 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Jul after 29.0 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 Jul after 31.4 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Jul after 32.9 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Jul after 32.4 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Jul after 35.5 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jul after 36.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Aug after 33.6 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jul 2016
After · 29 Jul 2016

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 22 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1071 µg/m³
202122232425
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 · 9Every 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 Eulma fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 22 July 2016 and 22 July 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 233 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Eulma (234 ha, 1.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.3 km of Eulma. 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 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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

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.