Ouled Ben Abdelkader fire, June 2017 أولاد بن عبد القادر · Ouled Ben Abdelkader
The fire started on 23 June 2017 in Ouled Ben Abdelkader, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 199 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 9th largest in Chlef since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 92 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 199ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 23 Jun 2017 – 26 Jun 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 23 Jun
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 11
- in a single hotspot: 66 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 124MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 27 Jun.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Ouled Ben Abdelkader أولاد بن عبد القادر 19,952 inhabitants · 17.0 km from the centre where it started199 ha reached on 23 Jun1.1 %
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 forest86 %
- Other natural land14 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jun | 35.1 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jun | 38.1 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 25 Jun | 42.1 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Jun | 37.4 °C | 26 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 27 Jun after | 41.3 °C | 15 % | 57 km/h | 2.1 mm | Very high 47 |
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 26 June 2017 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 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)
Detections table · 11Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 355 haLardjem الأرجامAugust 2016 · 3 days · 3 km away
- 323 haRamka الرمكةOctober 2020 · 1 day · 6 km away
- 459 haLardjem الأرجامJune 2019 · 2 days · 10 km away
- 361 haLardjem الأرجامAugust 2019 · 3 days · 11 km away
- 364 haLarbaa الأربعاءAugust 2016 · 8 days · 13 km away
- 514 haBeni Bouattab بني بوعتاب11 July 2017 · 7 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ouled Ben Abdelkader fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 June 2017 to 26 June 2017 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 June 2017 to 24 June 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 199 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ouled Ben Abdelkader (199 ha, 1.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Ouled Ben Abdelkader and came within 17.0 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 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 June 2017 to 24 June 2017. 11 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.
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.