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Nechmaya fire, July 2017 نشامية · Nechmaya

Out · last detection 1 Aug 2017, 13:01 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2017 in Nechmaya, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 182 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 37th largest in Annaba since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 107 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area
182ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
31 Jul 2017 – 1 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
31 Jul
2017
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
209MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul1 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1

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

The weather it burned in

44°high
42km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 9 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. Nechmaya نشامية 9,964 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the town where it started
    182 ha reached on 1 Aug
    1.4 %

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

  • Other natural land51 %
  • Mixed forest49 %

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)
31 Jul 43.5 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Aug 41.9 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 56
2 Aug after 39.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Aug after 42.2 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Aug after 40.7 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Aug after 39.6 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 42
6 Aug after 38.9 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 42
7 Aug after 38.0 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 39
8 Aug after 42.3 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 52
9 Aug after 40.3 °C 21 % 37 km/h 1.3 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2017
After · 8 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 4 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 127 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak127 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10145 µg/m³
2930311234
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 · 6Every 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 Nechmaya fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 31 July 2017 and 1 August 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 182 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Nechmaya (182 ha, 1.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.0 km of Nechmaya. 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 43.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.