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Ouled Bouachra fire, 9 July 2017 أولاد بوعشرة · Ouled Bouachra

Out · last detection 14 Jul 2017, 13:39 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2017 in Ouled Bouachra, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 257 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 70 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouled Antar · 2017Ouled Hellal · 2017Ouled Hellal · 2020Ouled Hellal · 2020

Burnt area
257ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
7days
9 Jul 2017 – 15 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
9 Jul
2017
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
71MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul15 Jul
14 Jul 2017

How it evolved, day by day

11 Jul 2017 · 15 MW · 1 14 Jul 2017 · 127 MW · 9
11 Jul 14 Jul

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

43°high
45km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 22 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Ouled Bouachra أولاد بوعشرة 890 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre where it started
    258 ha reached on 11 Jul
    2.5 %

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 forest59 %
  • Other natural land36 %
  • Broadleaved forest4.2 %

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)
11 Jul 43.0 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Jul 43.0 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Jul 42.1 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Jul 41.7 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
15 Jul 37.6 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Jul after 35.7 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Jul after 36.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Jul after 37.4 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Jul after 39.8 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 50
20 Jul after 38.1 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jul after 36.0 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jul after 39.9 °C 23 % 46 km/h 1.1 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jul 2017
After · 22 Jul 2017

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 12 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 97 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak97 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10113 µg/m³
91011121314151617
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)

Detections table · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

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 9 July 2017 to 15 July 2017 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 July 2017 to 14 July 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 257 hectares (2.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ouled Bouachra (258 ha, 2.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Ouled Bouachra and came within 3.6 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 43.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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

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?

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 July 2017 to 14 July 2017. 10 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.