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Tenira fire, July 2020 تنيرة · Tenira, Teghalimet, Oued Sefioun

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2020, 13:07 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2020 in Tenira, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,233 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Sidi Bel Abbes since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 4 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Youb · 2017Youb · 2017Oued Taourira · 2026Moulay Slissen · 2026

Burnt area
2,233ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
27 Jul 2020 – 30 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
27 Jul
2020
Heat detections
56
in a single hotspot: 165 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
566MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul30 Jul
29 Jul 2020

How it evolved, day by day

27 Jul 2020 · 140 MW · 12 28 Jul 2020 · 1,228 MW · 20 29 Jul 2020 · 331 MW · 24
27 Jul 28 Jul 29 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
41km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 51 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (22 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Tenira تنيرة 10,049 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the centre where it started
    1,149 ha reached on 27 Jul
    7.1 %
  2. Teghalimet تغاليمت 7,549 inhabitants · 10.3 km from the centre
    665 ha reached on 27 Jul
    3.4 %
  3. Oued Sefioun واد سفيون 5,886 inhabitants · 33.3 km from the centre
    425 ha reached on 29 Jul
    1.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Mixed forest51 %
  • Other natural land31 %
  • Broadleaved forest18 %

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)
30 Jul 39.6 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
31 Jul after 39.5 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Aug after 38.2 °C 12 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
2 Aug after 37.6 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
3 Aug after 34.5 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
4 Aug after 32.5 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Aug after 35.8 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
6 Aug after 37.5 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Aug after 37.1 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
8 Aug after 37.4 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
9 Aug after 37.5 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2020
After · 6 Aug 2020

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 28 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1066 µg/m³
2829303112
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 · 56Every 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 Tenira fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 July 2020 to 30 July 2020 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 July 2020 to 30 July 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,233 hectares (22.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tenira (1,149 ha, 7.1 %); Teghalimet (665 ha, 3.4 %); Oued Sefioun (425 ha, 1.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Tenira and came within 6.0 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 July 2020 to 30 July 2020. 56 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.