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Hanancha fire, August 2022 الحنانشة · Hanancha, Oued Cheham

Out · last measured on 17 Aug 2022

The fire started on 17 August 2022 in Hanancha, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 232 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Souk Ahras since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 32 in Algeria in 2022, of 58.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
232ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
17 Aug 2022 – 17 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
17 Aug
2022
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

40°high
68km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 27 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. Hanancha الحنانشة 15,790 inhabitants · 9.2 km from the town where it started
    231 ha
    1.1 %
  2. Oued Cheham وادي الشحم 14,043 inhabitants · 9.6 km from the town
    1 ha
    0.0 %

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 land69 %
  • Mixed forest24 %
  • Agricultural areas5.2 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.8 %

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)
17 Aug 39.9 °C 12 % 68 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 67
18 Aug after 33.2 °C 29 % 51 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 51
19 Aug after 28.5 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Aug after 30.5 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug after 31.2 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug after 30.5 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
23 Aug after 29.2 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Aug after 30.7 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Aug after 31.5 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Aug after 32.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Aug after 31.7 °C 32 % 31 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2022
After · 24 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 18 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1069 µg/m³
Optical depth1.09
151617181920
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Hanancha fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 August 2022 and 17 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 232 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hanancha (231 ha, 1.1 %); Oued Cheham (1 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.2 km of Hanancha. 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 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.