How long did the Tafissour fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 8 September 2016 and 9 September 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 869 hectares (8.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Oued Taourira (547 ha, 1.4 %); Tafissour (324 ha, 1.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.7 km of Tafissour. 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 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2016-09-08 → 2016-09-09

Tafissour fire, September 2016 تفسور · Oued Taourira, Tafissour

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2016, 12:55 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2016 in Tafissour, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 869 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Sidi Bel Abbes since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 6 in Algeria in 2016, of 62.

Burnt area: 869ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 8 Sept 2016 – 9 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 8 Sept; 2016
Heat detections: 22; in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start: 51; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 947MW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Sept 2016

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

8910

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

44km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 20 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Oued Taourira

547 ha reached on 8 Sept

1.4 %
Tafissour تفسور 2,515 inhabitants · 11.7 km from the town where it started

324 ha reached on 7 Sept

1.3 %

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 land70 %
Mixed forest28 %
Agricultural areas2.6 %

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)
7 Sept	34.5 °C	15 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
8 Sept	32.3 °C	22 %	39 km/h	1.2 mm	High 33
9 Sept	32.7 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Sept after	32.1 °C	26 %	36 km/h	1.8 mm	High 24
11 Sept after	30.9 °C	24 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
12 Sept after	33.5 °C	15 %	42 km/h	0.8 mm	Very high 41
13 Sept after	31.4 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 41
14 Sept after	24.7 °C	41 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Sept after	25.3 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Sept after	24.8 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Sept after	28.6 °C	24 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
18 Sept after	29.0 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
19 Sept after	27.9 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
20 Sept after	23.9 °C	42 %	36 km/h	2.2 mm	Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Sept 2016

After · 16 Sept 2016

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 8 September 2016 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak46 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM1061 µg/m³

WHO 15

5678910111213

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 · 22Every 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 Tafissour fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 8 September 2016 and 9 September 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 869 hectares (8.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Oued Taourira (547 ha, 1.4 %); Tafissour (324 ha, 1.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.7 km of Tafissour. 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 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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

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.

Report an error

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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