Skip to content
worldfires
DZ · Algeria · →

Ouled Hellal fire, 14 August 2020 أولاد هلال · Ouled Hellal

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2020, 12:49 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2020 in Ouled Hellal, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 197 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Médéa since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 143 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

Burnt area
197ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
14 Aug 2020 – 15 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
14 Aug
2020
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 116 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
594MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1415

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
46km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 20 Aug.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 26 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Ouled Hellal أولاد هلال 3,367 inhabitants · 10.9 km from the town where it started
    198 ha reached on 14 Aug
    0.9 %

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 land58 %
  • Mixed forest42 %

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)
14 Aug 38.3 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 47
15 Aug 38.2 °C 23 % 46 km/h 1.7 mm High 34
16 Aug after 35.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 36.8 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Aug after 37.6 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Aug after 40.3 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug after 41.4 °C 16 % 36 km/h 1.1 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Aug 2020
After · 22 Aug 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 15 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1046 µg/m³
12131415161718
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 · 12Every 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 14 August 2020 and 15 August 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 197 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ouled Hellal (198 ha, 0.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.9 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 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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

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.