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Tadjena fire, August 2021 تاجنة · Tadjena, Moussadek

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2021, 01:23 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2021 in Tadjena, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 245 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Chlef since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 50 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

Burnt area
245ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
12 Aug 2021 – 13 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
12 Aug
2021
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 99 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
234MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1213

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
30km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Tadjena تاجنة 24,413 inhabitants · 8.0 km from the town where it started
    126 ha reached on 12 Aug
    1.1 %
  2. Moussadek مصدق 6,380 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town
    119 ha reached on 13 Aug
    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 forest53 %
  • Other natural land44 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.8 %

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 36.2 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug 35.9 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Aug after 35.4 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Aug after 35.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Aug after 34.8 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Aug after 30.3 °C 48 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Aug after 29.1 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Aug after 27.8 °C 55 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
20 Aug after 30.3 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Aug after 31.1 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
22 Aug after 30.0 °C 55 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Aug after 32.9 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2021
After · 20 Aug 2021

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 8Every 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 Tadjena fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2021 and 13 August 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 245 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tadjena (126 ha, 1.1 %); Moussadek (119 ha, 1.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.5 km of Moussadek. 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 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.