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Eulma fire, August 2026 العلمة · Eulma, Bouati Mahmoud, Bekkouche Lakhdar

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

The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Eulma, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 20,949 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 8 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Annaba since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 2 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Burnt area
20,949ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
26 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
8
communes
Started on
26 Aug
2026
Heat detections
431
in a single hotspot: 267 MW
Danger at start
75
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
20.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

262728

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
54km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 234 ha in 2016, 613 ha in 2017, 29 ha in 2018, 1,020 ha in 2019, 185 ha in 2020, 975 ha in 2021, 72 ha in 2022, 6 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,919 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Eulma العلمة 10,316 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the town where it started
    10,536 ha reached on 26 Aug
    65 %
  2. Bouati Mahmoud بوعاطي محمود 9,658 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the town
    2,853 ha reached on 26 Aug
    31 %
  3. Bekkouche Lakhdar بكوش لخضر 15,176 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the town
    2,488 ha reached on 26 Aug
    17 %
  4. Nechmaya نشامية 9,964 inhabitants · 3.7 km from the town
    2,121 ha reached on 26 Aug
    17 %
  5. Cheurfa الشرفة 9,875 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town
    1,730 ha reached on 27 Aug
    18 %
  6. Ain Berda
    1,227 ha reached on 26 Aug
    8.9 %
  7. Heliopolis هيليوبوليس 26,328 inhabitants · 10.8 km from the town
    27 ha
    0.4 %
  8. Roknia بلدية الركنية 9,752 inhabitants · 11.1 km from the town
    6 ha
    0.0 %

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 forest56 %
  • Other natural land27 %
  • Agricultural areas16 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.8 %

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

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
حرائق العلمة (عنابة) · El Eulma, Annaba · Eulma (Annaba)
According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
  • El Eulma (Annaba): M'khelfa y Bir El Merdja
  • Cheurfa (Annaba) 27 August 2026
  • Ain Berda (Annaba) 27 August 2026
  • Bouati Mahmoud (Guelma) 27 August 2026

Sources

Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.

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)
26 Aug 45.5 °C 9 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
27 Aug 46.3 °C 7 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
28 Aug 34.7 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Aug after 44.0 °C 9 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
30 Aug after 34.0 °C 51 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Aug after 33.7 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Sept after 36.8 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Sept after 37.8 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Sept after 35.8 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Sept after 32.2 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Sept after 33.2 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Sept after 34.4 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 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 463 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 199: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak463 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10708 µg/m³
Optical depth3.08
24252627282930
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 · 431Every 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 Eulma fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2026 to 28 August 2026 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 August 2026 to 27 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 20,949 hectares (209.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 8 municipalities: Eulma (10,536 ha, 65 %); Bouati Mahmoud (2,853 ha, 31 %); Bekkouche Lakhdar (2,488 ha, 17 %); Nechmaya (2,121 ha, 17 %); Cheurfa (1,730 ha, 18 %); Ain Berda (1,227 ha, 8.9 %); Heliopolis (27 ha, 0.4 %); Roknia (6 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of Eulma. 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 46.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 80, 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

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.

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.