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Lardjem fire, June 2019 الأرجام · Lardjem

Out · last detection 28 Jun 2019, 13:52 UTC

The fire started on 27 June 2019 in Lardjem, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 459 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Tissemsilt since 2016 (of 12 with a page). Number 25 in Algeria in 2019, of 78.

Burnt area
459ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
27 Jun 2019 – 28 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
27 Jun
2019
Heat detections
15
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
111MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Jun 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jun28 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

2728

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
48km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 5 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Lardjem الأرجام 25,217 inhabitants · 8.7 km from the town where it started
    460 ha reached on 27 Jun
    1.7 %

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 forest60 %
  • Other natural land36 %
  • Broadleaved forest3.3 %

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)
27 Jun 40.3 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
28 Jun 37.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Jun after 39.0 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Jun after 36.5 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
1 Jul after 34.4 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Jul after 33.5 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Jul after 36.6 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 41
4 Jul after 34.2 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Jul after 39.8 °C 13 % 38 km/h 4.1 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jun 2019
After · 5 Jul 2019

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 June 2019 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1059 µg/m³
2526272829301
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 · 15Every 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 Lardjem fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 27 June 2019 and 28 June 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 459 hectares (4.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lardjem (460 ha, 1.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.7 km of Lardjem. 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 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.