Skip to content
worldfires
DZ · Algeria · →

Messelmoun fire, 13 July 2017 Messelmoun

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2017, 02:00 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2017 in Messelmoun, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 116 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 56th largest in Tipaza since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 151 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.2 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
116ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
13 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
13 Jul
2017
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
89MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

131415

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
32km/h · peak gust
32%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. Messelmoun where it started
    116 ha reached on 13 Jul
    0.6 %

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 forest83 %
  • Other natural land13 %
  • Broadleaved forest4.3 %

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)
13 Jul 31.4 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jul 30.0 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Jul after 25.9 °C 60 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
16 Jul after 26.6 °C 38 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jul after 26.4 °C 44 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Jul after 29.9 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Jul after 33.3 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm High 36
20 Jul after 28.4 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jul after 26.1 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Jul after 26.7 °C 56 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Jul after 29.1 °C 52 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jul after 27.3 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jul 2017
After · 21 Jul 2017

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 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1063 µg/m³
1112131415161718
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 · 12Every 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 Messelmoun fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 July 2017 and 14 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 116 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Messelmoun (116 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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

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.