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Ouled Hellal fire, 7 July 2020 أولاد هلال · Ouled Hellal, Ouled Antar

Out · last detection 13 Jul 2020, 13:07 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2020 in Ouled Hellal, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,014 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 6 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

Burnt area
2,014ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
7 Jul 2020 – 12 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
7 Jul
2020
Heat detections
82
in a single hotspot: 332 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul12 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

789111213

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
59km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Ouled Hellal أولاد هلال 3,367 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the town where it started
    2,012 ha reached on 2 Jul
    9.5 %
  2. Ouled Antar
    5 ha
    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

  • Other natural land51 %
  • Mixed forest43 %
  • Broadleaved forest5.0 %
  • Agricultural areas1.4 %

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)
4 Jul 29.5 °C 22 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Jul 30.0 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Jul 29.1 °C 20 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Jul 31.9 °C 19 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jul 34.4 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Jul 35.7 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Jul 32.9 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 52
11 Jul 34.3 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
12 Jul 33.3 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 43
13 Jul after 31.7 °C 24 % 54 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 44
14 Jul after 28.5 °C 37 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Jul after 30.3 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Jul after 30.7 °C 23 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Jul after 29.2 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Jul after 30.0 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
19 Jul after 30.2 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jul after 33.6 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Jul after 35.0 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Jul after 36.4 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 52
23 Jul after 31.9 °C 28 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul after 30.9 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jul after 35.1 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Jul after 37.3 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Jul after 37.5 °C 10 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 Jul after 37.7 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Jul after 36.8 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
30 Jul after 36.8 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
31 Jul after 36.9 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2020
After · 19 Jul 2020

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 3 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1038 µg/m³
23456789101112131415161718192021222324
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 · 82Every 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 7 July 2020 and 12 July 2020: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,014 hectares (20.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ouled Hellal (2,012 ha, 9.5 %); Ouled Antar (5 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of Ouled Hellal. 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 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.