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Maala fire, June 2023 Maala, Zbarbar, Lakhdaria

Out · last detection 18 Jun 2023, 13:47 UTC

The fire started on 18 June 2023 in Maala, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,202 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Blida since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 2 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.5 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
4,202ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
18 Jun 2023 – 23 Jun 2023
Municipalities hit
4
communes
Started on
18 Jun
2023
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
2MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jun23 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

18

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
62km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 53 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Maala where it started
    2,321 ha reached on 18 Jun
    42 %
  2. Zbarbar معالة 5,296 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town
    1,178 ha
    20 %
  3. Lakhdaria الأخضرية 59,746 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town
    632 ha
    6.8 %
  4. Kadiria
    80 ha
    0.8 %

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 forest58 %
  • Other natural land41 %

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)
18 Jun 37.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jun 39.3 °C 13 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Jun 37.9 °C 13 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Jun 39.7 °C 11 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 Jun 28.3 °C 49 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Jun 30.1 °C 52 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jun after 32.1 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Jun after 30.2 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Jun after 31.6 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jun after 34.5 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Jun after 36.9 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jun after 34.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Jun after 32.1 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Jul after 28.7 °C 49 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Jul after 30.7 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Jul after 32.3 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jun 2023
After · 30 Jun 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 21 June 2023 the air beside the fire reached 75 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak75 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10264 µg/m³
Optical depth1.38
1617181920212223242526
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 · 1Every 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 Maala fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 June 2023 and 23 June 2023: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,202 hectares (42.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Maala (2,321 ha, 42 %); Zbarbar (1,178 ha, 20 %); Lakhdaria (632 ha, 6.8 %); Kadiria (80 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.1 km of Zbarbar. 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 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.