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Melbou fire, August 2021 ملبو · Melbou

Out · last measured on 13 Aug 2021

The fire started on 11 August 2021 in Melbou, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 105 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 104th largest in Jijel since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 90 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

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
105ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
11 Aug 2021 – 13 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
11 Aug
2021
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

39°high
35km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Melbou ملبو 11,396 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town where it started
    106 ha
    2.2 %

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 %
  • Coniferous forest2.0 %
  • Agricultural areas2.0 %

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)
11 Aug 38.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Aug 37.6 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Aug 35.0 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug after 34.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug after 34.9 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug after 35.5 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 39
17 Aug after 30.5 °C 49 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Aug after 28.5 °C 54 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Aug after 32.0 °C 42 % 31 km/h 1.4 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2021
After · 20 Aug 2021

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 13 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak59 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10119 µg/m³
910111213141516
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 Melbou fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 11 August 2021 and 13 August 2021: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 105 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Melbou (106 ha, 2.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.9 km of Melbou. 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 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.