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Zaarouria fire, August 2022 الزعرورية · Zaarouria, Tiffech, Souk Ahras

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2022, 00:26 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2022 in Zaarouria, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 6,254 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Souk Ahras since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 2 in Algeria in 2022, of 58.

Burnt area
6,254ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
17 Aug 2022 – 18 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
5
communes
Started on
17 Aug
2022
Heat detections
149
in a single hotspot: 227 MW
Danger at start
74
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

171819

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
64km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 803 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Zaarouria الزعرورية 11,234 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town where it started
    4,519 ha reached on 17 Aug
    28 %
  2. Tiffech تيفاش 6,037 inhabitants · 8.0 km from the town
    724 ha reached on 17 Aug
    5.2 %
  3. Souk Ahras سوق أهراس 155,259 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town
    539 ha reached on 17 Aug
    12 %
  4. Hanancha الحنانشة 15,790 inhabitants · 5.0 km from the town
    469 ha reached on 17 Aug
    2.3 %
  5. Drea الدريعة 6,408 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the town
    16 ha reached on 18 Aug
    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

  • Mixed forest43 %
  • Other natural land35 %
  • Agricultural areas19 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.9 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Zaouia · Zaarouria · Wadi al-Shawk (Oued Chouk)
According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
  • Zaârouria / bosque de Oued Chouk (origen 17 August 2022
  • Hannacha (Hnancha) 17 August 2022
  • Meshroucha (M'Daourouch/Mcheroua) 17 August 2022
  • Souk Ahras ciudad (barrios 400 logements y 108) 17 August 2022

Sources

Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.

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)
17 Aug 39.7 °C 9 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
18 Aug 33.0 °C 20 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
19 Aug after 27.9 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug after 29.5 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 30.1 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug after 29.3 °C 25 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Aug after 28.5 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug after 29.7 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Aug after 31.5 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Aug after 32.5 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Aug after 31.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 43
28 Aug after 32.1 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.6 mm High 38
29 Aug after 34.1 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2022
After · 25 Aug 2022

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 17 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1072 µg/m³
Optical depth1.09
1516171819202122
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 · 149Every 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 Zaarouria fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 August 2022 and 18 August 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,254 hectares (62.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Zaarouria (4,519 ha, 28 %); Tiffech (724 ha, 5.2 %); Souk Ahras (539 ha, 12 %); Hanancha (469 ha, 2.3 %); Drea (16 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.5 km of Zaarouria. 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 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, class Very 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.