How long did the Eulma fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 10 July 2017 and 11 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 295 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Nechmaya (121 ha, 1.0 %); Eulma (110 ha, 0.7 %); Bouati Mahmoud (64 ha, 0.7 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.6 km of Nechmaya. 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 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2017-07-10 → 2017-07-11

Eulma fire, 10 July 2017 العلمة · Nechmaya, Eulma, Bouati Mahmoud

Out · last detection 11 Jul 2017, 12:55 UTC

The fire started on 10 July 2017 in Eulma, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 295 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 23th largest in Annaba since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 57 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area: 295ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 10 Jul 2017 – 11 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit: 3; communes
Started on: 10 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 18; in a single hotspot: 337 MW
Danger at start: 31; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3.1GW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jul11 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

41°high

34km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 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

Nechmaya نشامية 9,964 inhabitants · 8.6 km from the town

121 ha reached on 11 Jul

1.0 %
Eulma العلمة 10,316 inhabitants · 10.3 km from the town where it started

110 ha reached on 11 Jul

0.7 %
Bouati Mahmoud بوعاطي محمود 9,658 inhabitants · 9.1 km from the town

64 ha reached on 11 Jul

0.7 %

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 forest58 %
Other natural land38 %
Broadleaved forest3.7 %

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)
10 Jul	31.9 °C	39 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
11 Jul	40.6 °C	20 %	29 km/h	0.8 mm	Very high 40
12 Jul after	36.1 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
13 Jul after	34.0 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 Jul after	32.0 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
15 Jul after	30.4 °C	32 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
16 Jul after	28.7 °C	40 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
17 Jul after	29.4 °C	36 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
18 Jul after	31.7 °C	33 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
19 Jul after	34.6 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
20 Jul after	34.1 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
21 Jul after	31.9 °C	38 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Jul 2017

After · 18 Jul 2017

Before After

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 12 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 181 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 65: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak181 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM10198 µg/m³

WHO 15

891011121314

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 · 18Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Eulma fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 10 July 2017 and 11 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 295 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Nechmaya (121 ha, 1.0 %); Eulma (110 ha, 0.7 %); Bouati Mahmoud (64 ha, 0.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.6 km of Nechmaya. 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 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned