Lac des Oiseaux fire, July 2016 بحيرة الطيور · Lac des Oiseaux, Berrihane
The fire started on 22 July 2016 in Lac des Oiseaux, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,038 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 20th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 3 in Algeria in 2016, of 62.
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
- 1,038ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 22 Jul 2016 – 22 Jul 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 22 Jul
- 2016
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
931 ha11 %
-
109 ha0.5 %
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
- Agricultural areas100 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Jul | 38.2 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Jul after | 29.4 °C | 55 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Jul after | 27.8 °C | 56 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 25 Jul after | 29.1 °C | 51 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 26 Jul after | 28.8 °C | 51 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 27 Jul after | 29.8 °C | 45 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 28 Jul after | 30.2 °C | 47 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 29 Jul after | 29.6 °C | 47 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 30 Jul after | 32.1 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Jul after | 35.3 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 55 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 22 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lac des Oiseaux fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 22 July 2016 and 22 July 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,038 hectares (10.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lac des Oiseaux (931 ha, 11 %); Berrihane (109 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.8 km of Lac des Oiseaux. 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 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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
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.