How long did the Hamala fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 August 2026 to 26 August 2026 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 August 2026 to 24 August 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,373 hectares (13.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Hamala (546 ha, 8.6 %); Sidi Maarouf (542 ha, 8.1 %); Ghebala (289 ha, 2.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of Sidi Maarouf. 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 43.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 79, 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.

DZ · Algeria · 2026-08-24 → 2026-08-26

Hamala fire, August 2026 حمالة · Hamala, Sidi Maarouf, Ghebala

Out · last detection 26 Aug 2026, 13:14 UTC

The fire started on 24 August 2026 in Hamala, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,373 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Constantine since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 49 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Burnt area: 1,373ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 24 Aug 2026 – 26 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; communes
Started on: 24 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 50; in a single hotspot: 238 MW
Danger at start: 79; Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 2.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 26 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Aug26 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2526

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

The weather it burned in

43°high

62km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12 ha in 2020, 4 ha in 2021, 6 ha in 2024, 2 ha in 2025.

12 ha Ghebala fire, July 2020 481 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Hamala حمالة 11,213 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the town where it started

546 ha reached on 25 Aug

8.6 %
Sidi Maarouf سيدي معروف 21,662 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the town

542 ha reached on 26 Aug

8.1 %
Ghebala غبالة 5,236 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the town

289 ha

2.3 %

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

Other natural land60 %
Mixed forest39 %

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	Danger (FWI)
24 Aug	43.3 °C	10 %	62 km/h	Very extreme 79
25 Aug	35.3 °C	32 %	43 km/h	Very high 42
26 Aug	43.8 °C	9 %	78 km/h	Very extreme 91
27 Aug after	44.1 °C	7 %	74 km/h	Very extreme 95
28 Aug after	35.8 °C	15 %	42 km/h	Extreme 54
29 Aug after	36.8 °C	25 %	59 km/h	Very high 48
30 Aug after	35.8 °C	42 %	40 km/h	High 35
31 Aug after	35.1 °C	43 %	33 km/h	High 34
1 Sept after	37.5 °C	32 %	30 km/h	High 31
2 Sept after	38.2 °C	19 %	27 km/h	Very high 44
3 Sept after	35.3 °C	29 %	42 km/h	Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 17 Aug 2026

After · 2 Sept 2026

Before After

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 27 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1073 µg/m³

Optical depth0.98

WHO 15

222324252627

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 · 50Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Hamala fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 August 2026 to 26 August 2026 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 August 2026 to 24 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,373 hectares (13.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Hamala (546 ha, 8.6 %); Sidi Maarouf (542 ha, 8.1 %); Ghebala (289 ha, 2.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of Sidi Maarouf. 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 43.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 79, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned