Messelmoun fire, August 2018 Messelmoun, El Amra
The fire started on 7 August 2018 in Messelmoun, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 157 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 43th largest in Tipaza since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 3 in Algeria in 2018, of 5.
- Burnt area
- 157ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 7 Aug 2018 – 8 Aug 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 7 Aug
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 25
- in a single hotspot: 42 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 142MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months 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
-
Messelmoun where it started139 ha reached on 4 Aug0.7 %
-
19 ha reached on 6 Aug0.1 %
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 forest85 %
- Other natural land15 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Aug | 27.6 °C | 42 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 8 Aug | 29.0 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 9 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 49 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 10 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 47 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Aug after | 26.7 °C | 55 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 54 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 13 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 49 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Aug after | 26.7 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 15 Aug after | 26.2 °C | 54 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 16 Aug after | 25.3 °C | 52 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 17 Aug after | 24.2 °C | 58 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 18 Aug after | 24.0 °C | 57 % | 41 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.
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 · CopernicusOn 11 August 2018 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 25Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,093 haMesselmounAugust 2022 · 2 days · 4 km away
- 3,363 haEl Amra العامرةAugust 2021 · 5 days · 8 km away
- 1,368 haGouraya قورايةNovember 2020 · 1 day · 15 km away
- 1,209 haMesselmoun25 July 2020 · 5 days · 19 km away
- 2,102 haMesselmounNovember 2025 · 2 days · 22 km away
- 1,022 haAribJuly 2017 · 3 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Messelmoun fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 7 August 2018 and 8 August 2018: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 157 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Messelmoun (139 ha, 0.7 %); El Amra (19 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 13.4 km of El Amra. 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 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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
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.