How long did the Buqus fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2026 to 27 August 2026 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 August 2026 to 26 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 158 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Buqus (111 ha, 0.5 %); Zitouna (46 ha, 0.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.3 km of Buqus. 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 44.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2026-08-26 → 2026-08-27

Buqus fire, August 2026 بوقوس · Buqus, Zitouna

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2026, 01:34 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Buqus, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 158 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 91th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 165 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.4 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: 158ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 26 Aug 2026 – 27 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 26 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 3; in a single hotspot: 1 MW
Danger at start: 70; Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 3MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug27 Aug

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

45°high

52km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 44 ha in 2020.

44 ha Buqus fire, July 2020 107 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Buqus بوقوس 11,234 inhabitants · 6.3 km from the town where it started

111 ha reached on 27 Aug

0.5 %
Zitouna الزيتونة 9,736 inhabitants · 12.9 km from the town

46 ha

0.3 %

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 forest72 %
Other natural land21 %
Broadleaved forest7.1 %

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)
26 Aug	44.8 °C	8 %	52 km/h	Very extreme 70
27 Aug	45.3 °C	8 %	46 km/h	Extreme 67
28 Aug after	34.3 °C	22 %	36 km/h	Very high 49
29 Aug after	39.5 °C	20 %	62 km/h	Extreme 54
30 Aug after	33.2 °C	57 %	34 km/h	High 25
31 Aug after	32.5 °C	52 %	43 km/h	High 27
1 Sept after	34.1 °C	45 %	27 km/h	High 26
2 Sept after	35.8 °C	34 %	35 km/h	High 33
3 Sept after	33.0 °C	34 %	38 km/h	High 36
4 Sept after	29.6 °C	44 %	38 km/h	High 34
5 Sept after	31.4 °C	45 %	28 km/h	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Aug 2026

After · 3 Sept 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 29 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 195 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak195 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM10264 µg/m³

Optical depth1.70

WHO 15

242526272829

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 · 3Every 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 Buqus fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2026 to 27 August 2026 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 August 2026 to 26 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 158 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Buqus (111 ha, 0.5 %); Zitouna (46 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.3 km of Buqus. 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 44.8 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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