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Souhane fire, 5 July 2017 صوحان · Souhane

Out · last measured on 6 Jul 2017

The fire started on 5 July 2017 in Souhane, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 134 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Blida since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 137 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
134ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
5 Jul 2017 – 6 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
5 Jul
2017
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

37°high
36km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 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. Souhane صوحان 260 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town where it started
    134 ha
    1.9 %

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

  • Mixed forest60 %
  • Other natural land40 %

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)
5 Jul 35.2 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Jul 37.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Jul after 37.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Jul after 32.4 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Jul after 31.2 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Jul after 34.8 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Jul after 38.8 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Jul after 37.6 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Jul after 37.1 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Jul after 34.7 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jul after 31.2 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Jul after 30.5 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jun 2017
After · 13 Jul 2017

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 8 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1033 µg/m³
3456789
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Souhane fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 July 2017 and 6 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 134 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Souhane (134 ha, 1.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.1 km of Souhane. 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 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 36 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

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.