How long did the Roknia fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 9 August 2021 and 9 August 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 122 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Roknia (123 ha, 0.6 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Roknia and came within 11.9 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 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 · 2021-08-09 → 2021-08-09

Roknia fire, August 2021 بلدية الركنية · Roknia

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2021, 12:18 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2021 in Roknia, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 122 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Guelma since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 77 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ain Charchar · 2026 Azzaba · 2026 Ben Azouz · 2026 Ibn Badis · 2026

Burnt area: 122ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 9 Aug 2021 – 9 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 9 Aug; 2021
Heat detections: 4; in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 211MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

9 Aug 2021 · 211 MW · 4

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

The weather it burned in

40°high

33km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 16 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Roknia بلدية الركنية 9,752 inhabitants · 11.9 km from the centre where it started

123 ha reached on 9 Aug

0.6 %

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 forest93 %
Other natural land7.3 %

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)
9 Aug	40.2 °C	22 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Aug after	42.3 °C	15 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
11 Aug after	42.0 °C	11 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
12 Aug after	40.7 °C	16 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
13 Aug after	38.8 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
14 Aug after	35.2 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
15 Aug after	37.0 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
16 Aug after	38.2 °C	19 %	39 km/h	1.7 mm	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Aug 2021

After · 16 Aug 2021

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 10 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM1080 µg/m³

WHO 15

789101112

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 · 4Every 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 Roknia fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 9 August 2021 and 9 August 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 122 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Roknia (123 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Roknia and came within 11.9 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 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4 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.

Where it burned