Ait Smail fire, July 2025 آيت سماعيل · Ait Smail, Tizi N'Berber, Taskriout
The fire started on 14 July 2025 in Ait Smail, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 114 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 92th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 29 in Algeria in 2025, of 35.
The power measured by the satellite is low (6.8 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…
- Burnt area
- 114ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 14 Jul 2025 – 14 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 14 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 5
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 20MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
14 Jul 2025 · 20 MW · 5
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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 32 ha in 2016, 114 ha in 2019, 114 ha in 2021, 28 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 114 ha that had burned before.
- 114 ha Aokas fire, August 2019 1,780 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 114 ha Tizi N'Berber fire, August 2021 1,255 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 32 ha Tizi N'Berber fire, July 2016 133 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19 ha Tizi N'Berber fire, October 2023 457 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
47 ha reached on 14 Jul1.7 %
-
37 ha reached on 14 Jul0.7 %
-
30 ha reached on 14 Jul1.0 %
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
- Other natural land95 %
- Mixed forest5.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Jul | 30.5 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Jul after | 27.5 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 16 Jul after | 23.8 °C | 60 % | 31 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 17 Jul after | 26.5 °C | 41 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Jul after | 29.9 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Jul after | 30.8 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Jul after | 30.9 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 22 Jul after | 28.6 °C | 41 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Jul after | 31.1 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Jul after | 30.5 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
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 15 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 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 · 5Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 18,731 haDarguina درقينة19 August 2026 · 13 days · 8 km away
- 3,274 haTichy تيشيAugust 2026 · 3 days · 11 km away
- 6,699 haBoukhelifa بوخليفة10 August 2021 · 7 days · 16 km away
- 3,957 haEraguene إيراقن سويسيAugust 2026 · 4 days · 36 km away
- 9,887 haToudja توجةAugust 2021 · 7 days · 40 km away
- 3,720 haBeni Djellil بني جليلJuly 2023 · 6 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ait Smail fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 14 July 2025 and 14 July 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 114 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ait Smail (47 ha, 1.7 %); Tizi N'Berber (37 ha, 0.7 %); Taskriout (30 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Ait Smail and came within 3.1 km of its centre. 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 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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 · 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 5 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.
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.