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Kheddara fire, August 2017 الخضارة · Kheddara, Ain Zana, Awlad Mu'min

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2017, 12:05 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2017 in Kheddara, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 458 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 43 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area
458ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
3 Aug 2017 – 4 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
3 Aug
2017
Heat detections
21
in a single hotspot: 251 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

34

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
34km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 6 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. Kheddara الخضارة 8,329 inhabitants · 9.6 km from the town where it started
    185 ha reached on 30 Jul
    1.1 %
  2. Ain Zana عين زانة 7,499 inhabitants · 5.1 km from the town
    140 ha reached on 3 Aug
    0.9 %
  3. Awlad Mu'min أولاد مؤمن 4,682 inhabitants · 6.6 km from the town
    134 ha reached on 3 Aug
    1.1 %

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 land70 %
  • Mixed forest28 %
  • Agricultural areas2.4 %

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)
3 Aug 40.6 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Aug 41.2 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Aug after 41.0 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Aug after 41.3 °C 14 % 36 km/h 1.5 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2017
After · 11 Aug 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 21Every 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 Kheddara fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2017 and 4 August 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 458 hectares (4.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kheddara (185 ha, 1.1 %); Ain Zana (140 ha, 0.9 %); Awlad Mu'min (134 ha, 1.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.1 km of Ain Zana. 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 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.