Skip to content
worldfires
DZ · Algeria · →

Tiffech fire, July 2020 تيفاش · Tiffech, Hanancha

Out · last detection 1 Aug 2020, 00:51 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2020 in Tiffech, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 122 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 28th largest in Souk Ahras since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 202 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
122ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
31 Jul 2020 – 1 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
31 Jul
2020
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
26MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul1 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

311

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
39km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Tiffech تيفاش 6,037 inhabitants · 8.1 km from the town where it started
    112 ha reached on 31 Jul
    0.8 %
  2. Hanancha الحنانشة 15,790 inhabitants · 3.1 km from the town
    10 ha
    0.0 %

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 forest75 %
  • Other natural land25 %

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)
31 Jul 38.6 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Aug 37.5 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Aug after 37.9 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Aug after 36.8 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 59
4 Aug after 28.3 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
5 Aug after 28.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug after 30.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Aug after 30.6 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug after 30.6 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Aug after 31.2 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug after 32.9 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Aug after 36.0 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2020
After · 8 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 3 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1034 µg/m³
2930311234
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 · 2Every 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 Tiffech fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 31 July 2020 and 1 August 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 122 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tiffech (112 ha, 0.8 %); Hanancha (10 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.1 km of Hanancha. 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 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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

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.