Ouled Antar fire, 25 August 2020 Boghar, Ouled Antar
The fire started on 25 August 2020 in Ouled Antar, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 924 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 20 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.
- Burnt area
- 924ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 25 Aug 2020 – 28 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 56
- in a single hotspot: 111 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 893MW
- 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 3 days 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
-
629 ha reached on 24 Aug5.0 %
-
Ouled Antar where it started297 ha reached on 24 Aug1.4 %
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
- Mixed forest56 %
- Other natural land27 %
- Broadleaved forest9.9 %
- Agricultural areas7.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Aug | 37.3 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 26 Aug | 37.1 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 27 Aug | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Aug | 37.1 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 29 Aug after | 36.7 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 30 Aug after | 29.3 °C | 27 % | 39 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 41 |
| 31 Aug after | 27.9 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Sept after | 29.1 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Sept after | 31.5 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Sept after | 30.2 °C | 35 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 6 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Sept after | 29.4 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
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.
Detections table · 56Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,886 haOuled AntarJuly 2017 · 5 days · 7 km away
- 2,591 haOuled Hellal أولاد هلال11 July 2017 · 5 days · 13 km away
- 2,014 haOuled Hellal أولاد هلال7 July 2020 · 6 days · 14 km away
- 5,482 haOuled Hellal أولاد هلال6 August 2020 · 6 days · 18 km away
- 1,446 haOued Djemaa وادي الجمعة21 July 2016 · 2 days · 23 km away
- 2,201 haOued Djemaa وادي الجمعةJuly 2026 · 1 day · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ouled Antar fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 August 2020 and 28 August 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 924 hectares (9.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Boghar (629 ha, 5.0 %); Ouled Antar (297 ha, 1.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.6 km of Boghar. 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 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.