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Tala Hamza fire, August 2017 تالة حمزة · Amizour, Boukhelifa, Tala Hamza

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2017, 13:46 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2017 in Tala Hamza, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,004 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 22th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 19 in Algeria in 2017, of 173.

Burnt area
1,004ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
2 Aug 2017 – 4 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
2 Aug
2017
Heat detections
39
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
501MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

234

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
32km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 10 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Amizour أميزور 37,562 inhabitants · 9.2 km from the town
    514 ha reached on 2 Aug
    4.7 %
  2. Boukhelifa بوخليفة 8,766 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town
    307 ha reached on 2 Aug
    2.6 %
  3. Tala Hamza تالة حمزة 11,675 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the town where it started
    184 ha reached on 1 Aug
    4.9 %

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

  • Other natural land55 %
  • Mixed forest44 %

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)
2 Aug 33.2 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Aug 35.8 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Aug 30.5 °C 61 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Aug after 29.9 °C 69 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
6 Aug after 29.6 °C 67 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Aug after 28.7 °C 76 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
8 Aug after 36.3 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Aug after 28.7 °C 56 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Aug after 25.5 °C 78 % 36 km/h 1.2 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2017
After · 11 Aug 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.

Detections table · 39Every 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 Tala Hamza fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 2 August 2017 and 4 August 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 1,004 hectares (10.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Amizour (514 ha, 4.7 %); Boukhelifa (307 ha, 2.6 %); Tala Hamza (184 ha, 4.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.4 km of Boukhelifa. 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 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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.