How long did the Melbou fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2026 to 27 August 2026 (2 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 208 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Melbou (208 ha, 4.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.1 km of Melbou. 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 45.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 82, 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 → 2026-08-27

Melbou fire, August 2026 ملبو · Melbou

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2026, 01:34 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Melbou, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 208 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in Jijel since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 136 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

The power measured by the satellite is low (4.3 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: 208ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 26 Aug 2026 – 27 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 26 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 2; in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start: 82; Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 7MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug27 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

45°high

56km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 54 ha in 2020, 58 ha in 2022, 62 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 150 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Melbou ملبو 11,396 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town where it started

208 ha reached on 27 Aug

4.4 %

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 forest51 %
Other natural land41 %
Other land cover8.2 %

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	Danger (FWI)
26 Aug	45.0 °C	12 %	56 km/h	Very extreme 82
27 Aug	39.5 °C	30 %	19 km/h	Very high 39
28 Aug after	30.0 °C	53 %	25 km/h	High 27
29 Aug after	29.0 °C	72 %	35 km/h	Moderate 18
30 Aug after	28.4 °C	75 %	26 km/h	Moderate 16
31 Aug after	28.0 °C	76 %	25 km/h	Moderate 15
1 Sept after	29.1 °C	66 %	22 km/h	Moderate 13
2 Sept after	30.7 °C	56 %	18 km/h	Moderate 16
3 Sept after	29.0 °C	61 %	14 km/h	Moderate 17
4 Sept after	28.2 °C	69 %	15 km/h	Moderate 16
5 Sept after	27.4 °C	58 %	15 km/h	Moderate 16
6 Sept after	28.4 °C	57 %	15 km/h	Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Aug 2026

After · 3 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 634 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 303: 20 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak634 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10687 µg/m³

Optical depth2.23

WHO 15

24252627282930

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 · 2Every 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 Melbou fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2026 to 27 August 2026 (2 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 208 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Melbou (208 ha, 4.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.1 km of Melbou. 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 45.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 82, 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?

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