How long did the Souarekh fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2021 and 12 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 159 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Souarekh (158 ha, 1.8 %); El Aioun (2 ha, 0.0 %); Raml Souk (0 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.9 km of El Aioun. 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 21 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · 2021-08-12 → 2021-08-12

Souarekh fire, August 2021 السوارخ · Souarekh, El Aioun, Raml Souk

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2021, 13:02 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2021 in Souarekh, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 159 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 90th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 60 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

Burnt area: 159ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 12 Aug 2021 – 12 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 3; communes
Started on: 12 Aug; 2021
Heat detections: 7; in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start: 49; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 130MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

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

35km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 29 ha in 2017.

29 ha Souarekh fire, August 2017 2,599 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Souarekh السوارخ 8,173 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town where it started

158 ha reached on 11 Aug

1.8 %
El Aioun العيون 5,347 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town

2 ha

0.0 %
Raml Souk رمل السوق 4,356 inhabitants · 7.7 km from the town

0 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

Mixed forest77 %
Broadleaved forest18 %
Other natural land3.2 %
Agricultural areas1.3 %

Protected area affected (EFFIS layer): 100 %

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)
12 Aug	38.3 °C	21 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
13 Aug after	36.9 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
14 Aug after	33.0 °C	43 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Aug after	34.4 °C	38 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
16 Aug after	36.4 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.6 mm	Very high 41
17 Aug after	29.8 °C	59 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
18 Aug after	28.3 °C	53 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
19 Aug after	30.3 °C	47 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Aug after	30.6 °C	54 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
21 Aug after	31.7 °C	43 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
22 Aug after	32.0 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Aug 2021

After · 19 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 11 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak48 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10106 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 · 7Every 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 Souarekh fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2021 and 12 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 159 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Souarekh (158 ha, 1.8 %); El Aioun (2 ha, 0.0 %); Raml Souk (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.9 km of El Aioun. 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 21 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

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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.

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