Skip to content
worldfires
DZ · Algeria · →

Iferhounene fire, September 2023 إيفرحونن · Iferhounene, Abi Youcef

Out · last measured on 13 Sept 2023

The fire started on 10 September 2023 in Iferhounene, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 267 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Tizi Ouzou since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 38 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.

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
267ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
10 Sept 2023 – 13 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
10 Sept
2023
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

32°high
32km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 15 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Iferhounene إيفرحونن 12,460 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town where it started
    250 ha reached on 10 Sept
    7.6 %
  2. Abi Youcef أبي يوسف 7,693 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the town
    18 ha reached on 17 Sept
    1.0 %

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

  • Mixed forest70 %
  • Other natural land29 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.1 %

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)
10 Sept 32.5 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept 30.6 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.9 mm High 23
12 Sept 29.7 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 21
13 Sept 25.5 °C 45 % 31 km/h 1.8 mm Low 8
14 Sept after 29.4 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
15 Sept after 28.9 °C 30 % 58 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2023
After · 20 Sept 2023

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 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM10112 µg/m³
Optical depth0.55
8910111213141516
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 Iferhounene fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 September 2023 and 13 September 2023: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 267 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Iferhounene (250 ha, 7.6 %); Abi Youcef (18 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Iferhounene. 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 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

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.