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Beni Maouche fire, July 2026 بني معوش · Beni Maouche, Beni Mouhli, Beni Djellil

Out · last measured on 12 Jul 2026

The fire started on 12 July 2026 in Beni Maouche, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,562 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 28 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Beni Djellil · 2023Boukhelifa · 2021Toudja · 2021Taourirt Ighil · 2023

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
2,562ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
12 Jul 2026 – 12 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
4
communes
Started on
12 Jul
2026
Danger at start
85
Very extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

42°high
48km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2023.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (26 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Beni Maouche بني معوش 13,412 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the centre where it started
    2,228 ha
    24 %
  2. Beni Mouhli بني محلي 8,521 inhabitants · 3.7 km from the centre
    176 ha
    6.6 %
  3. Beni Djellil بني جليل 7,795 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the centre
    92 ha
    3.2 %
  4. Feraoun فرعون 15,482 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the centre
    72 ha
    1.6 %

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 land62 %
  • Mixed forest37 %
  • Agricultural areas0.7 %

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)
12 Jul 41.5 °C 7 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
13 Jul after 41.5 °C 7 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
14 Jul after 41.6 °C 8 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 96
15 Jul after 42.5 °C 8 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 90
16 Jul after 42.4 °C 6 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
17 Jul after 43.1 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
18 Jul after 42.0 °C 7 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
19 Jul after 42.9 °C 5 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 90
20 Jul after 42.7 °C 6 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 86
21 Jul after 42.4 °C 6 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 94
22 Jul after 42.9 °C 6 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm Very extreme 81

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2026
After · 19 Jul 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 15 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM10101 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
101112131415
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 Beni Maouche fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 July 2026 and 12 July 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 2,562 hectares (25.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Beni Maouche (2,228 ha, 24 %); Beni Mouhli (176 ha, 6.6 %); Beni Djellil (92 ha, 3.2 %); Feraoun (72 ha, 1.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 2.3 km of the centre of Feraoun, 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 41.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 85, 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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.