How long did the Kerkera fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2023 and 25 July 2023: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,709 hectares (27.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Kerkera (1,193 ha, 14 %); Beni Zid (837 ha, 6.0 %); Bin El Ouiden (657 ha, 6.2 %); Tamalous (27 ha, 0.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 km of Kerkera. 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 45.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2023-07-20 → 2023-07-25

Kerkera fire, July 2023 الكركرة · Kerkera, Beni Zid, Bin El Ouiden

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2023, 12:13 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2023 in Kerkera, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,709 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Skikda since 2016 (of 102 with a page). Number 6 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.

Burnt area: 2,709ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 20 Jul 2023 – 25 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit: 4; communes
Started on: 20 Jul; 2023
Heat detections: 92; in a single hotspot: 433 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 6.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 25 Jul 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul25 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2425

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

The weather it burned in

45°high

58km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 4 Aug.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2020, 6 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

Kerkera الكركرة 27,177 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town where it started

1,193 ha reached on 24 Jul

14 %
Beni Zid بني زيد 20,697 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town

837 ha reached on 24 Jul

6.0 %
Bin El Ouiden بين الويدان 21,629 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town

657 ha reached on 24 Jul

6.2 %
Tamalous تمالوس 51,262 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the town

27 ha

0.2 %

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 forest86 %
Other natural land10 %
Agricultural areas2.9 %

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)
20 Jul	38.0 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
21 Jul	37.9 °C	31 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
22 Jul	40.1 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 39
23 Jul	44.0 °C	12 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
24 Jul	45.1 °C	12 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
25 Jul	34.5 °C	19 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
26 Jul after	31.0 °C	54 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
27 Jul after	32.8 °C	45 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
28 Jul after	34.3 °C	50 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
29 Jul after	33.9 °C	61 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
30 Jul after	34.2 °C	50 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
31 Jul after	32.9 °C	50 %	31 km/h	0.1 mm	High 22
1 Aug after	32.7 °C	49 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
2 Aug after	34.4 °C	39 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
3 Aug after	37.5 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
4 Aug after	30.3 °C	60 %	53 km/h	3.7 mm	Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Jul 2023

After · 1 Aug 2023

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 25 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak69 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1099 µg/m³

Optical depth0.89

WHO 15

1819202122232425262728

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 · 92Every 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 Kerkera fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2023 and 25 July 2023: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,709 hectares (27.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Kerkera (1,193 ha, 14 %); Beni Zid (837 ha, 6.0 %); Bin El Ouiden (657 ha, 6.2 %); Tamalous (27 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 km of Kerkera. 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 45.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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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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.

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