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Maaouia fire, July 2019 معاوية · Maaouia, El Ayadi Barbes

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2019, 00:26 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2019 in Maaouia, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 864 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Setif since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 11 in Algeria in 2019, of 78.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.7 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
864ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
9 Jul 2019 – 9 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
9 Jul
2019
Heat detections
13
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
124MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

910

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
42km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 45 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Maaouia معاوية 7,005 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the town where it started
    758 ha reached on 9 Jul
    8.9 %
  2. El Ayadi Barbes العياضي برباس 6,459 inhabitants · 10.9 km from the town
    56 ha
    0.7 %

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

  • Other natural land43 %
  • Agricultural areas41 %
  • Mixed forest16 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.8 %

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)
9 Jul 40.2 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Jul after 31.8 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Jul after 34.5 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Jul after 36.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jul after 40.6 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Jul after 35.6 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jul after 29.6 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jul after 28.1 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Jul after 34.5 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Jul after 30.6 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Jul after 34.2 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Jul after 37.1 °C 21 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jul 2019
After · 16 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 9 July 2019 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1055 µg/m³
78910111213
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 · 13Every 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 Maaouia fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 July 2019 and 9 July 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 864 hectares (8.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maaouia (758 ha, 8.9 %); El Ayadi Barbes (56 ha, 0.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.7 km of Maaouia. 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 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.