How long did the Chefia fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 19 July 2026 and 19 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 1,082 hectares (10.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chefia (897 ha, 4.7 %); Lac des Oiseaux (187 ha, 2.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.4 km of Chefia. 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 47.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 21 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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 · 2026-07-19 → 2026-07-19

Chefia fire, 19 July 2026 الشافية · Chefia, Lac des Oiseaux

Out · last detection 20 Jul 2026, 13:06 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2026 in Chefia, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,082 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 19th largest in El Tarf since 2016 (of 121 with a page). Number 58 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Burnt area: 1,082ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 19 Jul 2026 – 19 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 19 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 19; in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start: 64; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 228MW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 Jul 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul19 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1920

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

The weather it burned in

47°high

21km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 27 Jul.

This area had burned before

33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 245 ha in 2017, 103 ha in 2020, 22 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

Chefia الشافية 8,195 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town where it started

897 ha reached on 19 Jul

4.7 %
Lac des Oiseaux بحيرة الطيور 10,624 inhabitants · 5.4 km from the town

187 ha reached on 19 Jul

2.2 %

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 forest60 %
Other natural land26 %
Agricultural areas14 %

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)
19 Jul	47.2 °C	7 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
20 Jul after	47.7 °C	6 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 71
21 Jul after	47.8 °C	6 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 75
22 Jul after	44.8 °C	12 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
23 Jul after	43.5 °C	14 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
24 Jul after	37.7 °C	28 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
25 Jul after	41.8 °C	17 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
26 Jul after	35.5 °C	31 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
27 Jul after	31.4 °C	39 %	36 km/h	2.2 mm	Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Jul 2026

After · 26 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 21 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM10110 µg/m³

Optical depth0.76

WHO 15

171819202122

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 · 19Every 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 Chefia fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 19 July 2026 and 19 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 1,082 hectares (10.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chefia (897 ha, 4.7 %); Lac des Oiseaux (187 ha, 2.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.4 km of Chefia. 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 47.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 21 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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