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Messelmoun fire, 18 July 2017 Messelmoun, Gouraya

Out · last detection 28 Jul 2017, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2017 in Messelmoun, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 180 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 36th largest in Tipaza since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 108 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Messelmoun · 2022Gouraya · 2020Messelmoun · 2020El Amra · 2021

Burnt area
180ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
10days
18 Jul 2017 – 27 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
18 Jul
2017
Heat detections
45
in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
100MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul27 Jul
28 Jul 2017

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 2017 · 46 MW · 1 19 Jul 2017 · 418 MW · 38 20 Jul 2017 · 8 MW · 2 22 Jul 2017 · 23 MW · 3 28 Jul 2017 · 7 MW · 1
18 Jul 19 Jul 20 Jul 22 Jul 28 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
36km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 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
    180 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.9 %
  2. Gouraya قوراية 20,144 inhabitants · 7.7 km from the centre
    0 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.0 %

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

  • Other natural land71 %
  • Mixed forest29 %

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)
19 Jul 34.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm High 37
20 Jul 29.8 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Jul 27.5 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Jul 28.1 °C 57 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Jul 30.5 °C 53 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Jul 28.7 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Jul 28.3 °C 51 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Jul 27.8 °C 50 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jul 29.9 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Jul after 33.1 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jul after 30.8 °C 38 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Jul after 31.6 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2017
After · 3 Aug 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 31 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1066 µg/m³
161718192021222324252627282930311
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 · 45Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 July 2017 to 27 July 2017 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 July 2017 to 20 July 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 180 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Messelmoun (180 ha, 0.9 %); Gouraya (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 7.7 km of the centre of Gouraya, 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 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 36 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 July 2017 to 20 July 2017. 45 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.