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Zeboudja fire, August 2019 الزبوجة · Beni Rachid, Zeboudja

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2019, 02:44 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2019 in Zeboudja, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 309 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Chlef since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 34 in Algeria in 2019, of 78.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.5 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
309ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
8 Aug 2019 – 9 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
8 Aug
2019
Heat detections
14
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
66MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

89

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
32km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Beni Rachid بني راشد 23,449 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the town
    203 ha reached on 8 Aug
    1.9 %
  2. Zeboudja الزبوجة 26,539 inhabitants · 5.1 km from the town where it started
    107 ha reached on 8 Aug
    0.8 %

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 forest44 %
  • Other natural land41 %
  • Broadleaved forest12 %
  • Agricultural areas3.4 %

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)
8 Aug 35.4 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 37.1 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Aug after 35.9 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Aug after 33.9 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Aug after 31.7 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug after 29.1 °C 46 % 47 km/h 0.8 mm High 26
14 Aug after 30.0 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug after 31.2 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Aug after 32.1 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 34.0 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Aug after 34.7 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Aug after 32.7 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2019
After · 16 Aug 2019

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 · 14Every 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 Zeboudja fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2019 and 9 August 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 309 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Beni Rachid (203 ha, 1.9 %); Zeboudja (107 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.1 km of Zeboudja. 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 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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.