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Skikda fire, June 2022 سكيكدة · Skikda, Ain Zouit

Out · last detection 15 Jun 2022, 12:05 UTC

The fire started on 14 June 2022 in Skikda, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 186 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 65th largest in Skikda since 2016 (of 102 with a page). Number 39 in Algeria in 2022, of 58.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
186ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
14 Jun 2022 – 15 Jun 2022
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
14 Jun
2022
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
150MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jun 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jun15 Jun

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

33°high
34km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 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

  1. Skikda سكيكدة 163,318 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the town where it started
    180 ha reached on 14 Jun
    3.2 %
  2. Ain Zouit عين زويت 1,977 inhabitants · 6.7 km from the town
    7 ha
    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 land51 %
  • Mixed forest49 %

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 Jun 32.8 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Jun 32.7 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Jun after 32.0 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jun after 31.3 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Jun after 30.9 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
19 Jun after 31.9 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Jun after 34.4 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
21 Jun after 35.8 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jun after 32.3 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Jun after 28.9 °C 53 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Jun after 30.2 °C 53 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Jun after 32.9 °C 41 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jun 2022
After · 22 Jun 2022

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 June 2022 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 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 Skikda fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 June 2022 and 15 June 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 186 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Skikda (180 ha, 3.2 %); Ain Zouit (7 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.6 km of Skikda. 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 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, class 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.