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Texenna fire, August 2023 تاكسنة · Texenna, Selma Ben Ziada

Out · last measured on 22 Aug 2023

The fire started on 22 August 2023 in Texenna, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 104 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 106th largest in Jijel since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 82 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
104ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
22 Aug 2023 – 22 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
22 Aug
2023
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

25°high
33km/h · peak gust
50%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 27 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. Texenna تاكسنة 15,682 inhabitants · 8.0 km from the town where it started
    93 ha
    0.6 %
  2. Selma Ben Ziada سلمى بن زيادة 920 inhabitants · 5.8 km from the town
    11 ha
    0.1 %

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 land88 %
  • Mixed forest12 %
  • Agricultural areas1.0 %

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)
22 Aug 25.2 °C 50 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Aug after 26.7 °C 48 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
24 Aug after 26.5 °C 51 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Aug after 25.6 °C 56 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
26 Aug after 27.7 °C 46 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
27 Aug after 27.3 °C 40 % 67 km/h 1.1 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2023
After · 29 Aug 2023

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 20 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1031 µg/m³
Optical depth0.19
202122232425
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Texenna fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 22 August 2023 and 22 August 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 104 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Texenna (93 ha, 0.6 %); Selma Ben Ziada (11 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.8 km of Selma Ben Ziada. 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 25.2 °C, humidity dropped to 50 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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.