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Asfour fire, 29 August 2026 عصفور · Asfour

Out · last measured on 29 Aug 2026

The fire started on 29 August 2026 in Asfour, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 175 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 80th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 152 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
175ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
29 Aug 2026 – 29 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
29 Aug
2026
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

44°high
43km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2020, 4 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Asfour عصفور 11,447 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town where it started
    175 ha
    1.7 %

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 forest82 %
  • Other natural land13 %
  • Agricultural areas5.2 %

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)
29 Aug 44.2 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
30 Aug after 33.7 °C 55 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Aug after 33.3 °C 52 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Sept after 34.8 °C 44 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Sept after 36.2 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Sept after 33.9 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Sept after 31.1 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Sept after 31.5 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Sept after 33.5 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Sept after 34.4 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Sept after 33.8 °C 40 % 35 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 · 22 Aug 2026
After · 5 Sept 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 30 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 127 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 65: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak127 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10191 µg/m³
Optical depth2.30
27282930311
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Asfour fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 29 August 2026 and 29 August 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 175 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Asfour (175 ha, 1.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.5 km of Asfour. 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 44.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class 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
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.