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Ghebala fire, July 2020 غبالة · Hamala, Ghebala

Out · last detection 11 Jul 2020, 02:24 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2020 in Ghebala, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 481 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 17th largest in Constantine since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 52 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
481ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
9 Jul 2020 – 11 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
9 Jul
2020
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
38MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul11 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1011

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
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 13 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Hamala حمالة 11,213 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town
    272 ha reached on 10 Jul
    4.3 %
  2. Ghebala غبالة 5,236 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the town where it started
    210 ha reached on 10 Jul
    1.7 %

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

  • Other natural land83 %
  • Mixed forest9.2 %
  • Agricultural areas8.1 %

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)
9 Jul 33.7 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Jul 33.3 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jul 35.9 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jul after 32.0 °C 35 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Jul after 31.5 °C 30 % 35 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jul 2020
After · 18 Jul 2020

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 2020 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
7891011121314
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 · 12Every 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 Ghebala fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 July 2020 and 11 July 2020: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 481 hectares (4.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hamala (272 ha, 4.3 %); Ghebala (210 ha, 1.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.0 km of Hamala. 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 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.