Skip to content
worldfires
DZ · Algeria · →

Ouled Hellal fire, 11 July 2017 أولاد هلال · Ouled Hellal, Bouaichoune, Ouled Bouachra

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2017, 13:20 UTC

The fire started on 11 July 2017 in Ouled Hellal, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,591 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 6 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area
2,591ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
11 Jul 2017 – 15 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
5
communes
Started on
11 Jul
2017
Heat detections
106
in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jul15 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

12131415

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
46km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 19 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 Hellal أولاد هلال 3,367 inhabitants · 9.8 km from the town where it started
    1,438 ha reached on 12 Jul
    6.8 %
  2. Bouaichoune بوعيشون 4,309 inhabitants · 8.7 km from the town
    1,089 ha reached on 14 Jul
    14 %
  3. Ouled Bouachra أولاد بوعشرة 890 inhabitants · 8.3 km from the town
    35 ha reached on 14 Jul
    0.3 %
  4. Ouled Antar
    23 ha reached on 14 Jul
    0.1 %
  5. Wadi Ash Shurfaa واد الشرفاء 13,353 inhabitants · 7.3 km from the town
    11 ha reached on 14 Jul
    0.1 %

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

  • Other natural land44 %
  • Mixed forest41 %
  • Agricultural areas8.8 %
  • Broadleaved forest5.4 %

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 42.1 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Jul 42.1 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Jul 40.9 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Jul 40.7 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Jul 35.9 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jul after 34.6 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Jul after 35.2 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Jul after 36.6 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 43
19 Jul after 38.7 °C 18 % 41 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 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.

Detections table · 106Every 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 Hellal fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 11 July 2017 and 15 July 2017: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,591 hectares (25.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Ouled Hellal (1,438 ha, 6.8 %); Bouaichoune (1,089 ha, 14 %); Ouled Bouachra (35 ha, 0.3 %); Ouled Antar (23 ha, 0.1 %); Wadi Ash Shurfaa (11 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 7.3 km of Wadi Ash Shurfaa. 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 42.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
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.

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.