Bounouh fire, July 2026 بونوح · Bounouh, Taghzout
The fire started on 17 July 2026 in Bounouh, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 137 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 34th largest in Tizi Ouzou since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 172 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.
- Burnt area
- 137ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 17 Jul 2026 – 17 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 17 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 24 ha in 2019, 3 ha in 2023, 3 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 28 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
76 ha reached on 20 Jul2.8 %
-
21 ha reached on 20 Jul0.4 %
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
- Other natural land67 %
- Mixed forest33 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Jul | 42.3 °C | 6 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 18 Jul after | 41.8 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 19 Jul after | 42.7 °C | 6 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 20 Jul after | 42.8 °C | 7 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 21 Jul after | 43.0 °C | 7 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 78 |
| 22 Jul after | 42.0 °C | 7 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 23 Jul after | 42.3 °C | 9 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 24 Jul after | 41.7 °C | 10 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 25 Jul after | 39.2 °C | 15 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 26 Jul after | 33.2 °C | 19 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 27 Jul after | 31.1 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 42 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 20 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 7Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,651 haDjebahia الجباحيةJuly 2023 · 2 days · 16 km away
- 3,656 haBeni Zmenzer بني زمنزرAugust 2021 · 5 days · 21 km away
- 26,745 haIboudraren إبودرارنAugust 2021 · 7 days · 29 km away
- 2,736 haTimezrit تيمزريتJuly 2023 · 2 days · 30 km away
- 16,465 haEl Hachimia الهاشميةJuly 2026 · 1 day · 33 km away
- 2,687 haZbarbar معالة20 July 2023 · 6 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bounouh fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 17 July 2026 and 17 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 137 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bounouh (76 ha, 2.8 %); Taghzout (21 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.8 km of Bounouh. 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 42.3 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 20 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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
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.