How long did the Ouled Hellal fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2016 and 19 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 168 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ouled Hellal (108 ha, 0.5 %); Wadi Ash Shurfaa (56 ha, 0.7 %); Birbouche (4 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.3 km of Birbouche. 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 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 33 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2016-08-18 → 2016-08-19

Ouled Hellal fire, August 2016 أولاد هلال · Ouled Hellal, Wadi Ash Shurfaa, Birbouche

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2016, 13:08 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2016 in Ouled Hellal, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 168 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 41th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 41 in Algeria in 2016, of 62.

Burnt area: 168ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 18 Aug 2016 – 19 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit: 3; communes
Started on: 18 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 14; in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start: 36; High · FWI index
Energy released: 515MW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 Aug 2016

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug19 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1819

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

33km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 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

Ouled Hellal أولاد هلال 3,367 inhabitants · 8.9 km from the town where it started

108 ha reached on 18 Aug

0.5 %
Wadi Ash Shurfaa واد الشرفاء 13,353 inhabitants · 9.8 km from the town

56 ha reached on 18 Aug

0.7 %
Birbouche بربوش 4,897 inhabitants · 4.3 km from the town

4 ha reached on 18 Aug

0.0 %

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 forest73 %
Other natural land23 %
Broadleaved forest3.6 %
Agricultural areas1.2 %

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)
18 Aug	35.8 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Aug	37.8 °C	21 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
20 Aug after	38.5 °C	20 %	37 km/h	0.8 mm	Very high 42
21 Aug after	33.6 °C	34 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
22 Aug after	32.9 °C	38 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
23 Aug after	31.6 °C	32 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
24 Aug after	33.6 °C	19 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
25 Aug after	33.4 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
26 Aug after	34.6 °C	31 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Aug after	34.4 °C	27 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
28 Aug after	36.7 °C	19 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
29 Aug after	38.1 °C	19 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Aug 2016

After · 26 Aug 2016

Before After

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 19 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak48 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1070 µg/m³

WHO 15

16171819202122

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 · 14Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ouled Hellal fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2016 and 19 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 168 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ouled Hellal (108 ha, 0.5 %); Wadi Ash Shurfaa (56 ha, 0.7 %); Birbouche (4 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.3 km of Birbouche. 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 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 33 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

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.

Where it burned