How long did the Bouinan fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2026 and 16 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 1,152 hectares (11.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bouinan (705 ha, 9.6 %); Hammam Melouane (450 ha, 3.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.1 km of Hammam Melouane. 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 44.5 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2026-07-16 → 2026-07-16

Bouinan fire, July 2026 بوينان · Bouinan, Hammam Melouane

Out · last detection 17 Jul 2026, 02:41 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2026 in Bouinan, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,152 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Blida since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 54 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,152ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 16 Jul 2026 – 16 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 16 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 28; in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start: 54; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 219MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

44°high

24km/h · peak gust

6%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2019, 59 ha in 2022, 4 ha in 2023.

59 ha Bouinan fire, October 2022 134 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Bouinan بوينان 31,070 inhabitants · 4.2 km from the town where it started

705 ha reached on 17 Jul

9.6 %
Hammam Melouane حمام ملوان 6,076 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town

450 ha reached on 17 Jul

3.0 %

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 forest58 %
Other natural land41 %
Broadleaved forest0.8 %
Artificial surfaces0.8 %

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	Danger (FWI)
16 Jul	44.5 °C	6 %	24 km/h	Extreme 54
17 Jul after	40.0 °C	11 %	19 km/h	Very high 49
18 Jul after	43.0 °C	9 %	19 km/h	Extreme 51
19 Jul after	42.5 °C	8 %	20 km/h	Extreme 55
20 Jul after	43.7 °C	7 %	18 km/h	Extreme 55
21 Jul after	43.8 °C	7 %	18 km/h	Extreme 56
22 Jul after	42.8 °C	10 %	20 km/h	Extreme 61
23 Jul after	40.7 °C	17 %	19 km/h	Extreme 55
24 Jul after	39.5 °C	19 %	17 km/h	Extreme 51
25 Jul after	36.2 °C	25 %	21 km/h	Very high 49
26 Jul after	31.8 °C	29 %	19 km/h	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Jul 2026

After · 23 Jul 2026

Before After

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 19 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak48 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM10104 µg/m³

Optical depth0.68

WHO 15

141516171819

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 · 28Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bouinan fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2026 and 16 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 1,152 hectares (11.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bouinan (705 ha, 9.6 %); Hammam Melouane (450 ha, 3.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.1 km of Hammam Melouane. 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 44.5 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned