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Larbatache fire, July 2023 الأربعطاش · Khemis El Khechna, Larbatache

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2023, 01:11 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2023 in Larbatache, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 179 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 30th largest in Blida since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 54 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

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Burnt area
179ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
23 Jul 2023 – 24 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
23 Jul
2023
Heat detections
19
in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
30MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul24 Jul
24 Jul 2023

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 2023 · 9 MW · 1 24 Jul 2023 · 50 MW · 18
23 Jul 24 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

47°high
52km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 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

  1. Khemis El Khechna خميس الخشنة 76,474 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the town
    135 ha reached on 24 Jul
    1.6 %
  2. Larbatache الأربعطاش 19,356 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town where it started
    44 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.9 %

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 forest67 %
  • Other natural land28 %
  • Agricultural areas4.4 %

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)
23 Jul 47.1 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
24 Jul 43.9 °C 4 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
25 Jul after 36.1 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jul after 34.8 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jul after 40.0 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
28 Jul after 36.6 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
29 Jul after 35.4 °C 55 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Jul after 35.7 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
31 Jul after 36.8 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Aug after 35.7 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Aug after 37.5 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Aug after 38.7 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2023
After · 31 Jul 2023

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 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak45 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10101 µg/m³
Optical depth0.82
21222324252627
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 · 19Every 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 Larbatache fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2023 and 24 July 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 179 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Khemis El Khechna (135 ha, 1.6 %); Larbatache (44 ha, 0.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.5 km of Larbatache. 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 47.1 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very 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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 19 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.