Larbaa fire, October 2023 الأربعاء · Souhane, Ouled Slama, Larbaa
The fire started on 17 October 2023 in Larbaa, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 136 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 34th largest in Blida since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 68 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.
The power measured by the satellite is low (6.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 136ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 17 Oct 2023 – 18 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 17 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 2
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 9MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.0 mm on 24 Oct.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
61 ha reached on 18 Oct0.8 %
-
42 ha0.6 %
-
34 ha reached on 17 Oct0.4 %
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 forest57 %
- Other natural land43 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Oct | 34.0 °C | 14 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Oct | 31.7 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 19 Oct after | 31.1 °C | 26 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Oct after | 24.5 °C | 30 % | 54 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Oct after | 23.1 °C | 40 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Oct after | 30.2 °C | 18 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Oct after | 31.2 °C | 20 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 24 Oct after | 24.0 °C | 47 % | 38 km/h | 8.0 mm | Very low 4 |
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 18 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 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)
Detections table · 2Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,520 haSouhane صوحانJuly 2023 · 3 days · 3 km away
- 3,849 haDeux Bassins فج الحوضينAugust 2021 · 6 days · 11 km away
- 1,152 haBouinan بوينانJuly 2026 · 1 day · 13 km away
- 2,035 haBaata بعطة11 July 2017 · 4 days · 21 km away
- 1,698 haBouchrahil بوشراحيلJuly 2019 · 5 days · 22 km away
- 4,202 haMaalaJune 2023 · 6 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Larbaa fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 17 October 2023 and 18 October 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 136 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Souhane (61 ha, 0.8 %); Ouled Slama (42 ha, 0.6 %); Larbaa (34 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.3 km of Souhane. 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 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.