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Mechroha fire, July 2020 المشروحة · Mechroha, Oued Zitoun

Out · last measured on 21 Jul 2020

The fire started on 21 July 2020 in Mechroha, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 274 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 12th largest in Souk Ahras since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 104 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Beni Salah · 2021Boucheghouf · 2017Zaarouria · 2022ساقية سيدي يوسف · 2021

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
274ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
21 Jul 2020 – 21 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
21 Jul
2020
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

31°high
42km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 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. Mechroha المشروحة 21,802 inhabitants · 18.1 km from the centre where it started
    192 ha
    0.9 %
  2. Oued Zitoun واد الزيتون 5,881 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the centre
    83 ha
    1.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Mixed forest61 %
  • Other natural land39 %

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)
21 Jul 31.1 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul after 31.1 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jul after 31.2 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul after 27.7 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul after 29.5 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Jul after 32.3 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul after 34.1 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jul after 33.5 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Jul after 33.8 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jul after 34.7 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Jul after 35.9 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2020
After · 28 Jul 2020

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 24 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak11 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1023 µg/m³
192021222324
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mechroha fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 21 July 2020 and 21 July 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 274 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mechroha (192 ha, 0.9 %); Oued Zitoun (83 ha, 1.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 6.2 km of the centre of Oued Zitoun, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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. No 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.