How long did the Frikat fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2020 to 15 August 2020 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 August 2020 to 15 August 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 272 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Frikat (187 ha, 4.9 %); Aomar (86 ha, 1.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Frikat and came within 3.5 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 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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 · 2020-08-11 → 2020-08-15

Frikat fire, August 2020 فريقات · Frikat, Aomar

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2020, 02:25 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2020 in Frikat, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 272 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 19th largest in Tizi Ouzou since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 107 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

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Burnt area: 272ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 5days; 11 Aug 2020 – 15 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 11 Aug; 2020
Heat detections: 16; in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start: 35; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 98MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug15 Aug

Play back 12 Aug 2020

How it evolved, day by day

11 Aug 12 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

44km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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

Frikat فريقات 12,791 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the centre where it started

187 ha reached on 11 Aug

4.9 %
Aomar عمر 20,532 inhabitants · 6.5 km from the centre

86 ha reached on 12 Aug

1.2 %

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 forest61 %
Other natural land39 %

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)
15 Aug	35.5 °C	30 %	44 km/h	1.0 mm	High 35
16 Aug after	32.6 °C	35 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
17 Aug after	32.1 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
18 Aug after	32.8 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
19 Aug after	36.7 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
20 Aug after	38.3 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 Aug after	37.2 °C	29 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
22 Aug after	35.7 °C	27 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
23 Aug after	33.8 °C	34 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 Aug after	32.5 °C	35 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
25 Aug after	35.7 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Aug 2020

After · 22 Aug 2020

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 16 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1033 µg/m³

WHO 15

131415161718

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 · 16Every 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 Frikat fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 August 2020 to 15 August 2020 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 August 2020 to 15 August 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 272 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Frikat (187 ha, 4.9 %); Aomar (86 ha, 1.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Frikat and came within 3.5 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 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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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?

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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 August 2020 to 15 August 2020. 16 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.

Where it burned