How long did the Nechmaya fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 14 August 2021 and 14 August 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 138 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Nechmaya (138 ha, 1.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Nechmaya and came within 5.7 km of its centre. 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 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2021-08-14 → 2021-08-14

Nechmaya fire, 14 August 2021 نشامية · Nechmaya

Out · last measured on 14 Aug 2021

The fire started on 14 August 2021 in Nechmaya, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 138 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 41th largest in Annaba since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 70 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Eulma · 2026 Djebala Khemissi · 2026 Ain Charchar · 2026 Ben Azouz · 2026

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area: 138ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 14 Aug 2021 – 14 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 14 Aug; 2021
Danger at start: 53; Extreme · FWI index

The weather it burned in

38°high

39km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

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

Nechmaya نشامية 9,964 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the centre where it started

138 ha reached on 10 Aug

1.1 %

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

Mixed forest67 %
Other natural land29 %
Agricultural areas3.6 %

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 Aug	37.6 °C	23 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
15 Aug after	39.0 °C	17 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
16 Aug after	40.4 °C	15 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 53
17 Aug after	33.7 °C	40 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
18 Aug after	30.3 °C	43 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
19 Aug after	34.6 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
20 Aug after	33.9 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
21 Aug after	35.1 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
22 Aug after	35.8 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
23 Aug after	37.9 °C	16 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
24 Aug after	35.0 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Aug 2021

After · 21 Aug 2021

Before After

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 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM1085 µg/m³

WHO 15

121314151617

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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Nechmaya fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 14 August 2021 and 14 August 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 138 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Nechmaya (138 ha, 1.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Nechmaya and came within 5.7 km of its centre. 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 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.

Where it burned