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Irdjen fire, August 2024 إرجن · Algeria

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2024, 00:51 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2024 in Irdjen, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 741 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Tizi Ouzou since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 3 in Algeria in 2024, of 14.

Burnt area
741ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
9 Aug 2024 – 12 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
0
communes
Started on
9 Aug
2024
Heat detections
54
in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
866MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

101112

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
45km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 15 Aug.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 709 ha in 2021.

What burned

  • Mixed forest92 %
  • Other natural land4.4 %
  • Other land cover3.0 %

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 Aug 33.9 °C 52 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Aug 37.0 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug 36.8 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 37
12 Aug 34.6 °C 46 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
13 Aug after 32.8 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Aug after 31.6 °C 48 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug after 29.2 °C 59 % 42 km/h 5.8 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2024
After · 19 Aug 2024

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 13 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
789101112131415
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 · 54Every 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 Irdjen fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 August 2024 and 12 August 2024: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 741 hectares (7.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.