Ouled Bouachra fire, June 2016 أولاد بوعشرة · Ouled Bouachra
The fire started on 25 June 2016 in Ouled Bouachra, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 126 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 48th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 58 in Algeria in 2016, of 62.
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- Burnt area
- 126ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 25 Jun 2016 – 27 Jun 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 25 Jun
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 148 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 131MW
- 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 7 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
-
126 ha reached on 25 Jun1.2 %
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
- Other natural land39 %
- Mixed forest35 %
- Agricultural areas25 %
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 Jun | 38.0 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Jun | 33.2 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Jun | 35.3 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 31 |
| 28 Jun after | 38.8 °C | 18 % | 54 km/h | 0.4 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 29 Jun after | 37.7 °C | 24 % | 49 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 50 |
| 30 Jun after | 32.3 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 1 Jul after | 33.9 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Jul after | 34.9 °C | 26 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Jul after | 40.3 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 4 Jul after | 40.0 °C | 18 % | 50 km/h | 0.6 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 5 Jul after | 33.2 °C | 33 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Jul after | 35.0 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
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 27 June 2016 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 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 · 7Every 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 · 7 days · 9 km away
- 2,591 haOuled Hellal أولاد هلال11 July 2017 · 5 days · 9 km away
- 5,482 haOuled Hellal أولاد هلال6 August 2020 · 9 days · 18 km away
- 2,014 haOuled Hellal أولاد هلال2 July 2020 · 16 days · 20 km away
- 2,201 haOued Djemaa وادي الجمعةJuly 2026 · 5 days · 30 km away
- 4,006 haOued Djemaa وادي الجمعةJune 2019 · 6 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ouled Bouachra fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 June 2016 to 27 June 2016 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 June 2016 to 26 June 2016.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 126 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ouled Bouachra (126 ha, 1.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Ouled Bouachra and came within 2.9 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 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.
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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 June 2016 to 26 June 2016. 7 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.