How long did the Settara fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 11 July 2017 and 12 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 695 hectares (7.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Settara (581 ha, 8.1 %); Oum Toub (88 ha, 0.5 %); Ghebala (23 ha, 0.2 %); Ain Kechra (4 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.7 km of Ghebala. 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 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 · 2017-07-11 → 2017-07-12

Settara fire, July 2017 السطارة · Settara, Oum Toub, Ghebala

Out · last detection 12 Jul 2017, 01:15 UTC

The fire started on 11 July 2017 in Settara, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 695 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Constantine since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 25 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area: 695ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 11 Jul 2017 – 12 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit: 4; communes
Started on: 11 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 32; in a single hotspot: 235 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 3.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 12 Jul 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jul12 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1112

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

The weather it burned in

41°high

31km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 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

Settara السطارة 15,155 inhabitants · 6.3 km from the town where it started

581 ha reached on 11 Jul

8.1 %
Oum Toub أم الطوب 34,458 inhabitants · 13.7 km from the town

88 ha reached on 11 Jul

0.5 %
Ghebala غبالة 5,236 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the town

23 ha

0.2 %
Ain Kechra

4 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 land57 %
Mixed forest42 %
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)
11 Jul	40.8 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 38
12 Jul	36.8 °C	31 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
13 Jul after	34.5 °C	38 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 Jul after	32.1 °C	40 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Jul after	30.8 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
16 Jul after	29.2 °C	41 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
17 Jul after	29.7 °C	44 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
18 Jul after	32.4 °C	40 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
19 Jul after	34.7 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
20 Jul after	33.1 °C	39 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
21 Jul after	31.4 °C	40 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Jul after	33.1 °C	50 %	48 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Jul 2017

After · 19 Jul 2017

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 12 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 107 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak107 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM10145 µg/m³

WHO 15

9101112131415

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 · 32Every 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 Settara fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 11 July 2017 and 12 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 695 hectares (7.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Settara (581 ha, 8.1 %); Oum Toub (88 ha, 0.5 %); Ghebala (23 ha, 0.2 %); Ain Kechra (4 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.7 km of Ghebala. 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 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

Report an error

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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