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Zekri fire, 26 August 2020 زكري · Adekar, Zekri

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2020, 02:25 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2020 in Zekri, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 390 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 43th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 78 in Algeria in 2020, of 236.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.6 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
390ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
26 Aug 2020 – 28 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
26 Aug
2020
Heat detections
17
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
120MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

262728

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
38km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 30 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. Adekar
    279 ha reached on 27 Aug
    2.6 %
  2. Zekri زكري 3,286 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town where it started
    112 ha reached on 26 Aug
    1.2 %

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 forest61 %
  • Other natural land38 %
  • Agricultural areas0.8 %

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)
26 Aug 30.5 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Aug 29.7 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Aug 31.9 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
29 Aug after 32.7 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Aug after 23.8 °C 41 % 43 km/h 2.8 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2020
After · 4 Sept 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.

Detections table · 17Every 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 Zekri fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 26 August 2020 and 28 August 2020: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 390 hectares (3.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Adekar (279 ha, 2.6 %); Zekri (112 ha, 1.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.2 km of Zekri. 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 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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.