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Messelmoun fire, 14 July 2019 Messelmoun

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2019, 13:33 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2019 in Messelmoun, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 148 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 47th largest in Tipaza since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 61 in Algeria in 2019, of 78.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.5 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
148ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
14 Jul 2019 – 15 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
14 Jul
2019
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
26MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul15 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1415

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
52km/h · peak gust
38%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 20 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Messelmoun where it started
    149 ha reached on 14 Jul
    0.8 %

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 forest62 %
  • Other natural land36 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.3 %

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)
14 Jul 27.1 °C 38 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul 27.5 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Jul after 27.6 °C 41 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jul after 28.9 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Jul after 24.9 °C 53 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Jul after 29.5 °C 39 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jul after 32.1 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm High 35
21 Jul after 28.6 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Jul after 29.4 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jul after 30.1 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jul after 29.0 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul after 29.4 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2019
After · 22 Jul 2019

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 2019 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1039 µg/m³
12131415161718
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 · 10Every 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 14 July 2019 and 15 July 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 148 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Messelmoun (149 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.5 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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.