Skip to content
worldfires
DZ · Algeria · –

Doui Thabet fire, 18 July 2026 ذوي ثابت · Sidi Amar, Ouled Khaled, Doui Thabet

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2026, 01:54 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2026 in Doui Thabet, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 7,251 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

Number 10 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Burnt area
7,251ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 8days
18 Jul 2026 – 25 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
5
communes
Started on
18 Jul
2026
Heat detections
231
in a single hotspot: 166 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
771MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul25 Jul
25 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 2026 · 10 MW · 1 21 Jul 2026 · 139 MW · 2 22 Jul 2026 · 3,573 MW · 101 23 Jul 2026 · 793 MW · 93 24 Jul 2026 · 79 MW · 28 25 Jul 2026 · 35 MW · 6
18 Jul 22 Jul 24 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
47km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.6% of the area of London (73 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. Sidi Amar سيدي اعمر 8,991 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the centre
    3,629 ha reached on 22 Jul
    21 %
  2. Ouled Khaled أولاد خالد 30,484 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the centre
    1,856 ha reached on 22 Jul
    9.0 %
  3. Doui Thabet ذوي ثابت 5,158 inhabitants · 10.7 km from the centre where it started
    899 ha reached on 18 Jul
    4.1 %
  4. Sidi Boubekeur سيدي بوبكر 19,282 inhabitants · 5.6 km from the centre
    876 ha reached on 22 Jul
    3.6 %
  5. Saïda سعيدة 128,413 inhabitants · 6.7 km from the centre
    4 ha
    0.1 %

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 land44 %
  • Mixed forest42 %
  • Broadleaved forest7.1 %
  • Agricultural areas6.8 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area1.1 ha
Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.1 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with Very dry air: 40 % of the area in Algeria

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
18 Jul 40.2 °C 10 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
19 Jul 40.7 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
20 Jul 41.1 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
21 Jul 41.6 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 Jul 41.4 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 61
23 Jul 40.2 °C 14 % 32 km/h 2.6 mm Very high 40
24 Jul 39.8 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 47
25 Jul 34.6 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Jul after 31.5 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jul after 33.7 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jul after 38.7 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jul after 35.7 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jul after 36.1 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jul after 36.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Aug after 38.0 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Aug after 38.1 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Aug after 39.3 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 54
4 Aug after 36.1 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 66.1, a minimum humidity of 10% and 17 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 13.

FWI at the start 66.1
Minimum humidity 10 %
Days without rain 17
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Oued Sebaa fire, July 2017
279 ha 1 day FWI 68.5 Min. humidity 13 % 84 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 1 Aug.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 13. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
47km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 25 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.

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 · 11 Jul 2026
After · 1 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 20 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1066 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
16 Jul18 Jul20 Jul
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 · 231Every 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 Doui Thabet fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (18 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 25 July 2026 (8 days from 18 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 7,251 hectares (72.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Sidi Amar (3,629 ha, 21 %); Ouled Khaled (1,856 ha, 9.0 %); Doui Thabet (899 ha, 4.1 %); Sidi Boubekeur (876 ha, 3.6 %); Saïda (4 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 2.5 km of the centre of Sidi Amar, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 41.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 18 July 2026 → 25 July 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. 231 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.