Zekri fire, August 2021 زكري · Zekri, Adekar, Beni Ksila
The fire started on 9 August 2021 in Zekri, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 7,342 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 4 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.
- Burnt area
- 7,342ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 9 Aug 2021 – 14 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 9 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 471
- in a single hotspot: 691 MW
- Danger at start
- 63
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 19.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 17 Aug.
This area had burned before
15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 222 ha in 2016, 346 ha in 2017, 508 ha in 2020.
- 451 ha Adekar fire, July 2020 1,096 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 222 ha Zekri fire, October 2016 716 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 179 ha Beni Ksila fire, July 2017 1,404 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 104 ha Zekri fire, August 2017 273 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 15 ha Zekri fire, August 2020 390 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10 ha Zekri fire, August 2020 427 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4 ha Beni Ksila fire, August 2020 538 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
3,863 ha reached on 10 Aug43 %
-
1,851 ha reached on 10 Aug17 %
-
1,322 ha reached on 10 Aug7.2 %
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 forest80 %
- Other natural land18 %
- Agricultural areas0.8 %
- Coniferous forest0.8 %
- Artificial surfaces0.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Aug | 42.2 °C | 7 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 10 Aug | 42.8 °C | 7 % | 69 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 11 Aug | 40.2 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 12 Aug | 40.4 °C | 8 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 13 Aug | 37.5 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 14 Aug | 38.6 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 15 Aug after | 38.2 °C | 10 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 16 Aug after | 36.8 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 17 Aug after | 26.1 °C | 44 % | 44 km/h | 2.5 mm | Moderate 12 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 11 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 168 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 471Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,233 haTaourirt Ighil تاوريرت آغيلJuly 2023 · 8 days · 17 km away
- 3,611 haAzazga عزازقةAugust 2021 · 3 days · 21 km away
- 3,264 haToudja توجةAugust 2026 · 3 days · 21 km away
- 9,887 haToudja توجةAugust 2021 · 7 days · 22 km away
- 6,262 haIloula Oumalou إيلولة أمالوAugust 2021 · 6 days · 25 km away
- 3,720 haBeni Djellil بني جليلJuly 2023 · 6 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Zekri fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 9 August 2021 and 14 August 2021: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 7,342 hectares (73.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Zekri (3,863 ha, 43 %); Adekar (1,851 ha, 17 %); Beni Ksila (1,322 ha, 7.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 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 42.8 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 69 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, 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
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.