Filfila fire, August 2026 فلفلة · Filfila, Djendel Saadi Mohamed
The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Filfila, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,446 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 8th largest in Skikda since 2016 (of 102 with a page). Number 29 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.
- Burnt area
- 2,446ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 26 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 26 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 143
- in a single hotspot: 323 MW
- Danger at start
- 92
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 6.3GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 37 ha in 2017, 29 ha in 2020, 5 ha in 2024.
What happened to each town
-
2,259 ha reached on 26 Aug33 %
-
191 ha reached on 28 Aug0.9 %
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 forest83 %
- Other natural land10 %
- Broadleaved forest4.2 %
- Other land cover1.0 %
- Coniferous forest0.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Aug | 44.1 °C | 9 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 92 |
| 27 Aug | 44.7 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 28 Aug | 31.0 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 29 Aug after | 37.7 °C | 30 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 63 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Aug after | 31.3 °C | 52 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 1 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 53 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 48 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 3 Sept after | 30.7 °C | 43 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Sept after | 29.1 °C | 47 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Sept after | 28.9 °C | 44 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 29 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 180 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 80: 5.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 143Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Filfila 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 26 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,446 hectares (24.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Filfila (2,259 ha, 33 %); Djendel Saadi Mohamed (191 ha, 0.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.5 km of Filfila. 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 44.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 92, 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
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.