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DZ · Algeria · –

Darguina fire, 31 July 2026 درقينة · Darguina, Kherrata, Oued El Bared

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2026, 01:15 UTC

The fire started on 31 July 2026 in Darguina, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 626 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 12th largest in Jijel since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 78 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Darguina · 2021Yakouren · 2020Darguina · 2020Darguina · 2021

Burnt area
626ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 13days
31 Jul 2026 – 12 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
31 Jul
2026
Heat detections
52
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
89MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jul12 Aug
12 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

1 Aug 2026 · 219 MW · 7 2 Aug 2026 · 66 MW · 15 3 Aug 2026 · 210 MW · 20 4 Aug 2026 · 16 MW · 7 5 Aug 2026 · 1 MW · 2 12 Aug 2026 · 22 MW · 1
1 Aug 3 Aug 5 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
34km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 16 Aug.

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 45 ha in 2019, 237 ha in 2020, 99 ha in 2021, 59 ha in 2023, 5 ha in 2024, 11 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 379 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.4% of the area of London (6.3 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. Darguina درقينة 14,146 inhabitants · 3.7 km from the centre where it started
    583 ha reached on 1 Aug
    6.9 %
  2. Kherrata خراطة،بجاية 35,077 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the centre
    44 ha reached on 2 Aug
    0.4 %
  3. Oued El Bared واد البارد 2,333 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the centre
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Other natural land83 %
  • Mixed forest17 %

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)
31 Jul 31.7 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Aug 32.1 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug 35.5 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm High 35
3 Aug 34.4 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Aug 32.0 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
5 Aug 29.3 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug 29.9 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug 30.0 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Aug 31.3 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Aug 34.2 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug 33.3 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Aug 33.9 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Aug 33.1 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.5 mm High 36
13 Aug after 31.2 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug after 29.2 °C 56 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug after 30.6 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
16 Aug after 31.6 °C 44 % 24 km/h 1.0 mm High 30

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 34.4, a minimum humidity of 40% and 45 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 37.

FWI at the start 34.4
Minimum humidity 40 %
Days without rain 45
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Darguina fire, August 2021
279 ha 10 days FWI 34.9 Min. humidity 39 % 9 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 19 Aug.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
186 ha
median area
8 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 17 of 37 had it)

It was 3.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 13 days, against 2 days.

Only 6 of its 37 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 20 of 37, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.0 mmfirst rain
16 Aug4 days after it ended
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 Aug, and on 16 Aug 1.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 17 of 37, with a median of 1.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jul 2026
After · 19 Aug 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 3 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1058 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
30 Jul1 Aug3 Aug
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 · 52Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Darguina fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (1 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 12 August 2026 (13 days from 31 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 626 hectares (6.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Darguina (583 ha, 6.9 %); Kherrata (44 ha, 0.4 %); Oued El Bared (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Darguina and came within 3.7 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 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 37. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 186 ha; 8 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 6 of its 37 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 20 of 37, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.6 mm.

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 · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 1 August 2026 → 12 August 2026.
  2. Start date: 1 August 2026 → 31 July 2026.
  3. Last day with fire: 12 August 2026 → 1 August 2026.
  4. Start date: 31 July 2026 → 1 August 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 52 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.