Souhane fire, 11 July 2017 صوحان · Souhane, Boukram
The fire started on 11 July 2017 in Souhane, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 901 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 8th largest in Blida since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 20 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.
- Burnt area
- 901ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 11 Jul 2017 – 13 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 11 Jul
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 44
- in a single hotspot: 118 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 932MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
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
It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 19 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
649 ha reached on 9 Jul9.1 %
-
253 ha reached on 11 Jul2.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Jul | 30.3 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Jul | 32.0 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Jul | 38.2 °C | 12 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 12 Jul | 37.2 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 13 Jul | 35.9 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 14 Jul after | 32.9 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Jul after | 28.8 °C | 55 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Jul after | 30.0 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Jul after | 29.6 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 18 Jul after | 37.4 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Jul after | 40.1 °C | 15 % | 43 km/h | 1.3 mm | Extreme 53 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 12 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 55 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 44Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,849 haDeux Bassins فج الحوضينAugust 2021 · 6 days · 2 km away
- 1,520 haSouhane صوحانJuly 2023 · 3 days · 8 km away
- 1,698 haBouchrahil بوشراحيلJuly 2019 · 5 days · 23 km away
- 4,202 haMaalaJune 2023 · 6 days · 24 km away
- 2,035 haBaata بعطة11 July 2017 · 4 days · 25 km away
- 2,687 haZbarbar معالة20 July 2023 · 6 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Souhane fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 11 July 2017 and 13 July 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 901 hectares (9.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Souhane (649 ha, 9.1 %); Boukram (253 ha, 2.7 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.4 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 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
- 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
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.