How long did the Kendira fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2026 and 18 August 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 307 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kendira (243 ha, 5.3 %); Bousselam (61 ha, 1.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.7 km of Kendira. 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 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class 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 · 2026-08-18 → 2026-08-18

Kendira fire, August 2026 كنديرة · Kendira, Bousselam

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2026, 13:46 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2026 in Kendira, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 307 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 48th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 110 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.8 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: 307ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 18 Aug 2026 – 18 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 18 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 22; in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 31MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug18 Aug

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

40°high

60km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 86 ha in 2020, 4 ha in 2021, 18 ha in 2022, 8 ha in 2023, 1 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

Kendira كنديرة 5,364 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town where it started

243 ha reached on 19 Aug

5.3 %
Bousselam بوسلام 16,095 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town

61 ha

1.0 %

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 forest53 %
Other natural land47 %

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)
18 Aug	35.2 °C	21 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
19 Aug after	38.2 °C	16 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
20 Aug after	35.8 °C	18 %	60 km/h	0.6 mm	Extreme 56
21 Aug after	35.8 °C	25 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
22 Aug after	39.2 °C	16 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
23 Aug after	39.5 °C	16 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
24 Aug after	42.3 °C	10 %	78 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 92
25 Aug after	40.1 °C	17 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
26 Aug after	42.5 °C	9 %	90 km/h	0.2 mm	Very extreme 108
27 Aug after	42.4 °C	8 %	89 km/h	0.1 mm	Very extreme 106
28 Aug after	36.2 °C	13 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
29 Aug after	34.0 °C	29 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
30 Aug after	35.3 °C	42 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Aug after	37.3 °C	33 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
1 Sept after	36.6 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Sept after	38.2 °C	17 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Aug 2026

After · 25 Aug 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 25 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 118 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 51: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak118 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM10166 µg/m³

Optical depth0.63

WHO 15

1617181920212223242526

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 · 22Every 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 Kendira fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2026 and 18 August 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 307 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kendira (243 ha, 5.3 %); Bousselam (61 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.7 km of Kendira. 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 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class 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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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