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DZ · Algeria · –

El Aioun fire, August 2026 العيون · El Aioun, Raml Souk

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2026, 01:15 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2026 in El Aioun, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 168 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 156 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Boucheghouf · 2021Awlad Mu'min · 2021El Aioun · 2017Souarekh · 2017

Burnt area
168ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 2days
27 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
27 Aug
2026
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
63
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
42MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

28 Aug 2026 · 42 MW · 10

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

The weather it burned in

46°high
34km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 68 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. El Aioun العيون 5,347 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the centre where it started
    86 ha reached on 28 Aug
    1.9 %
  2. Raml Souk رمل السوق 4,356 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the centre
    82 ha
    1.6 %

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

  • Mixed forest60 %
  • Other natural land20 %
  • Agricultural areas13 %
  • Broadleaved forest6.6 %

Protected area affected (EFFIS layer): 100 %

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)

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

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
27 Aug 46.5 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
28 Aug 35.5 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Aug after 40.9 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
30 Aug after 32.7 °C 61 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
31 Aug after 32.5 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Sept after 33.9 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Sept after 35.2 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Sept after 31.5 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Sept after 30.1 °C 49 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Sept after 30.9 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Sept after 32.8 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 62.7, a minimum humidity of 9% and 50 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 33.

FWI at the start 62.7
Minimum humidity 9 %
Days without rain 50
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Boucheghouf fire, August 2021
126 ha 1 day FWI 63.4 Min. humidity 8 % 92 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
592 ha
median area
33 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 11 of 33 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 168 ha against a median of 592 ha. It lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

In 22 of 33, 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 1.2 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 33, with a median of 1.2 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 · 20 Aug 2026
After · 4 Sept 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 30 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 127 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak127 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10201 µg/m³
Optical depth2.53
25 Aug27 Aug29 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 · 10Every 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 El Aioun fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (27 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 28 August 2026 (2 days from 27 August 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 168 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: El Aioun (86 ha, 1.9 %); Raml Souk (82 ha, 1.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in El Aioun and came within 2.1 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 46.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.
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: 33. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 592 ha; 33 % went past 1,000 ha. In 22 of 33, 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 1.2 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 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. 10 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.