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Azzaba fire, August 2026 عزابة · Azzaba, Ramdane Djamel, Djendel Saadi Mohamed

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2026, 01:15 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2026 in Azzaba, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,623 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Skikda since 2016 (of 102 with a page). Number 13 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Burnt area
5,623ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
27 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
27 Aug
2026
Heat detections
123
in a single hotspot: 282 MW
Danger at start
109
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2728

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

The weather it burned in

47°high
50km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 78 ha in 2016, 392 ha in 2017, 194 ha in 2019, 237 ha in 2020, 70 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 904 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Azzaba عزابة 56,922 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town where it started
    3,235 ha reached on 27 Aug
    19 %
  2. Ramdane Djamel رمضان جمال 27,194 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the town
    2,258 ha reached on 27 Aug
    19 %
  3. Djendel Saadi Mohamed جندل 8,655 inhabitants · 5.0 km from the town
    141 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.6 %

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 forest62 %
  • Other natural land25 %
  • Agricultural areas13 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Sources

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)
27 Aug 46.8 °C 6 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 109
28 Aug 35.0 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 41
29 Aug after 44.7 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Very extreme 86
30 Aug after 34.7 °C 49 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Aug after 35.4 °C 46 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Sept after 37.7 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Sept after 37.5 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
3 Sept after 35.8 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept after 32.6 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Sept after 32.9 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Sept after 35.7 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2026
After · 4 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 276 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 137: 9.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak276 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10415 µg/m³
Optical depth2.81
252627282930
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 · 123Every 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 Azzaba fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2026 to 28 August 2026 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2026 to 27 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,623 hectares (56.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Azzaba (3,235 ha, 19 %); Ramdane Djamel (2,258 ha, 19 %); Djendel Saadi Mohamed (141 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.2 km of Azzaba. 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 46.8 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 109, 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
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.