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Abi Youcef fire, July 2026 أبي يوسف · Abi Youcef, Ain El Hammam

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2026, 01:34 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2026 in Abi Youcef, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 117 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 41th largest in Tizi Ouzou since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 183 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Iboudraren · 2021Iloula Oumalou · 2021Azazga · 2021Idjer · 2021

Burnt area
117ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 4days
23 Jul 2026 – 26 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
23 Jul
2026
Heat detections
17
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
72
Very extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
34MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul26 Jul
26 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 2026 · 86 MW · 6 24 Jul 2026 · 41 MW · 5 25 Jul 2026 · 9 MW · 5 26 Jul 2026 · 1 MW · 1
23 Jul 24 Jul 25 Jul 26 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
24km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 116 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Abi Youcef أبي يوسف 7,693 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre where it started
    118 ha reached on 23 Jul
    7.0 %
  2. Ain El Hammam عين الحمام 20,401 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the centre
    0 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Mixed forest85 %
  • Other natural land13 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.7 %

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)
23 Jul 42.8 °C 9 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
24 Jul 42.0 °C 10 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
25 Jul 40.3 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
26 Jul 34.0 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Jul after 30.6 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
28 Jul after 32.8 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Jul after 34.8 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul after 36.2 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jul after 36.7 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Aug after 36.8 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Aug after 38.5 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 54
3 Aug after 36.9 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Aug after 34.0 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Aug after 31.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2026
After · 2 Aug 2026

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 28 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1097 µg/m³
Optical depth0.93
212223242526272829
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 · 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 Abi Youcef fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (23 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 26 July 2026 (4 days from 23 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 117 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Abi Youcef (118 ha, 7.0 %); Ain El Hammam (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 1.7 km of the centre of Ain El Hammam, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; 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 9 % and gusts hit 24 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 17 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.