Oued Fragha fire, August 2022 وادي فراغة · Oued Fragha, Beni Mezline
The fire started on 17 August 2022 in Oued Fragha, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 260 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 27th largest in Annaba since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 28 in Algeria in 2022, of 58.
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
- 260ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 17 Aug 2022 – 17 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 17 Aug
- 2022
- Danger at start
- 64
- Extreme · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 27 Aug.
This area had burned before
4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
166 ha2.0 %
-
95 ha1.5 %
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 forest97 %
- Other natural land3.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Aug | 41.7 °C | 11 % | 64 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 18 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 36 % | 48 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Aug after | 28.9 °C | 40 % | 44 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Aug after | 29.5 °C | 39 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Aug after | 30.4 °C | 39 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 25 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 1.1 mm | High 27 |
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 17 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Oued Fragha fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 17 August 2022 and 17 August 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 260 hectares (2.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Oued Fragha (166 ha, 2.0 %); Beni Mezline (95 ha, 1.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.4 km of Beni Mezline. 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 41.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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
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.