Hammam Nbail fire, August 2026 Hammam Nbail, Ain Sandel
The fire started on 20 August 2026 in Hammam Nbail, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 136 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 33th largest in Guelma since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 173 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.
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- Burnt area
- 136ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 9days
- 20 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 20 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 12
- in a single hotspot: 42 MW
- Danger at start
- 73
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 78MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Hammam Nbail where it started126 ha reached on 27 Aug0.8 %
-
11 ha0.1 %
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
- Mixed forest76 %
- Other natural land19 %
- Broadleaved forest3.6 %
- Agricultural areas1.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Aug | 40.1 °C | 10 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 28 Aug | 39.9 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 29 Aug after | 38.0 °C | 13 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 30 Aug after | 38.0 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 31 Aug after | 37.2 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 1 Sept after | 34.8 °C | 22 % | 39 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 49 |
| 2 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 3 Sept after | 31.6 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 4 Sept after | 28.6 °C | 34 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 6 Sept after | 32.1 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
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 30 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 125 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 72: 4.8 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 · 12Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,006 haDjebala Khemissi جبالة لخميسيJuly 2026 · 5 days · 26 km away
- 6,254 haZaarouria الزعروريةAugust 2022 · 3 days · 29 km away
- 5,857 haBeni Salah BoucheghoufAugust 2021 · 4 days · 32 km away
- 4,488 haBoucheghoufAugust 2017 · 6 days · 32 km away
- 3,193 haMedjez Sfa مجاز الصفاءAugust 2022 · 2 days · 36 km away
- 2,404 haNechmaya نشامية1 August 2019 · 8 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Hammam Nbail 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 (9 days from 20 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 136 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hammam Nbail (126 ha, 0.8 %); Ain Sandel (11 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 10.6 km of the centre of Ain Sandel, 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 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, 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 · 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.
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
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. 12 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.
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.