How long did the Idjer 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 1,424 hectares (14.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Idjer (804 ha, 11 %); Bouzguen (623 ha, 9.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Idjer. 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 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 86 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 99, 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 · 2026-08-26 → 2026-08-28

Idjer fire, August 2026 إجر · Idjer, Bouzguen

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

The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Idjer, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,424 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Tizi Ouzou since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 48 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,424ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 26 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 26 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 9; in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start: 99; Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 26MW; sum of detected power

Play back 28 Aug 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2728

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

The weather it burned in

42°high

86km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 267 ha in 2020, 209 ha in 2021, 36 ha in 2023, 66 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 544 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Idjer إجر 10,301 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town where it started

804 ha reached on 27 Aug

11 %
Bouzguen بوزقن 24,311 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the town

623 ha

9.1 %

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 forest73 %
Other natural land22 %
Agricultural areas3.2 %
Broadleaved forest1.2 %

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	41.6 °C	8 %	86 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 99
27 Aug	42.2 °C	7 %	86 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 98
28 Aug	35.7 °C	13 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
29 Aug after	31.8 °C	41 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
30 Aug after	36.2 °C	33 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Aug after	37.7 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Sept after	37.4 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
2 Sept after	38.0 °C	16 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 48
3 Sept after	36.5 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
4 Sept after	33.3 °C	22 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
5 Sept after	34.5 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
6 Sept after	36.7 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
7 Sept after	35.5 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52

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

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 30 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 98 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak98 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10145 µg/m³

Optical depth1.26

WHO 15

2425262728293031

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 · 9Every 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 Idjer 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 1,424 hectares (14.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Idjer (804 ha, 11 %); Bouzguen (623 ha, 9.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Idjer. 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 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 86 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 99, 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.

Report an error

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