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Beni Ouartilane fire, July 2026 بني ورتيلان · Beni Ouartilane, Beni Chebana

Out · last measured on 12 Jul 2026

The fire started on 12 July 2026 in Beni Ouartilane, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,263 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 18th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 52 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Beni Ouartilane · 2017Beni Djellil · 2023Boukhelifa · 2021Toudja · 2021

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
1,263ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
12 Jul 2026 – 12 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
12 Jul
2026
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

41°high
27km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 436 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (13 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 Ouartilane بني ورتيلان 10,591 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the centre where it started
    936 ha
    13 %
  2. Beni Chebana بني شبانة 13,174 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the centre
    330 ha
    5.9 %

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 forest51 %
  • Other natural land49 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.6 %

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 40.8 °C 8 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Jul after 41.5 °C 7 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Jul after 42.2 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
15 Jul after 42.7 °C 8 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jul after 43.2 °C 6 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
17 Jul after 42.8 °C 6 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jul after 42.5 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Very extreme 74
19 Jul after 43.2 °C 6 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
20 Jul after 43.3 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 94
21 Jul after 43.0 °C 7 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 Jul after 42.5 °C 7 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67

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 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1058 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 Ouartilane 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 1,263 hectares (12.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Beni Ouartilane (936 ha, 13 %); Beni Chebana (330 ha, 5.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Beni Ouartilane and came within 0.5 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 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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.

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.