Oued El Aneb fire, July 2026 Oued El Aneb, Seraidi, El Bouni
The fire started on 16 July 2026 in Oued El Aneb, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 11,190 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Annaba since 2016 (of 50 with a page). Number 8 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 11,190ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 8days
- 16 Jul 2026 – 23 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 16 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 652
- in a single hotspot: 445 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 4.1GW
- 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 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 72 ha in 2016, 3,006 ha in 2017, 82 ha in 2020, 2,719 ha in 2021, 22 ha in 2023, 6 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,437 ha that had burned before.
- 2,966 ha Oued El Aneb fire, July 2017 4,108 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,253 ha Seraidi fire, August 2021 3,718 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 253 ha Oued El Aneb fire, August 2021 561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 139 ha Oued El Aneb fire, July 2021 144 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 74 ha El Bouni fire, August 2021 236 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 50 ha Oued El Aneb fire, August 2020 312 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 16 ha El Bouni fire, August 2023 123 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Oued El Aneb where it started6,211 ha reached on 17 Jul33 %
-
4,578 ha reached on 17 Jul34 %
-
415 ha reached on 22 Jul4.4 %
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 forest75 %
- Other natural land23 %
- Broadleaved forest2.2 %
Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 9.8 hectares of built-up land and about 650 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Checked against the press
Checked on 29 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Feu de Chehaïba (Oued El Aneb) · Incendie de Seraïdi · Incendies de l'Edough
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Chehaïba / Djebel Rakhrakha 15 July 2026
- Bosques de Seraïdi 21 July 2026
Sources
- Feux de forêts : lourd bilan et mobilisation gouvernementale à Annaba — Le Matin d'Algérie, 22 July 2026
- Feux de forêt en Algérie : Saïd Sayoud annonce des enquêtes sur l'origine d'une vague d'incendies inédite — TSA Algérie, 22 July 2026
- SERAÏDI - OUED EL ANEB : Le dispositif de lutte renforcé — Le Provincial, 19 July 2026
- عنابة: الحرائق تحاصر قرى ومداشر أعالي سيرايدي — El Khabar, 17 July 2026
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jul | 40.4 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Jul | 42.4 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 18 Jul | 37.2 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 19 Jul | 41.7 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Jul | 38.2 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 21 Jul | 43.2 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.8 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 Jul | 37.5 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Jul | 35.9 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 24 Jul after | 33.1 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Jul after | 34.2 °C | 39 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Jul after | 31.7 °C | 53 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 27 Jul after | 29.0 °C | 52 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Jul after | 29.6 °C | 50 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Jul after | 30.9 °C | 50 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Jul after | 31.2 °C | 49 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 31 Jul after | 32.4 °C | 46 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 1 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 43 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 2 Aug after | 35.2 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
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 19 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 128 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.0 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 · 652Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,718 haSeraidi وادي العنبAugust 2021 · 4 days · 1 km away
- 4,108 haOued El AnebJuly 2017 · 8 days · 6 km away
- 3,917 haBerrahal برحالAugust 2020 · 7 days · 16 km away
- 2,739 haChetaibi شطايبيAugust 2026 · 3 days · 20 km away
- 20,949 haEulma العلمةAugust 2026 · 3 days · 31 km away
- 4,207 haBen Azouz بن عزوزJuly 2026 · 3 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Oued El Aneb fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (16 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 23 July 2026 (8 days from 16 July 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 11,190 hectares (111.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Oued El Aneb (6,211 ha, 33 %); Seraidi (4,578 ha, 34 %); El Bouni (415 ha, 4.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.8 km of the centre of Seraidi, 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 43.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 16 July 2026 → 23 July 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. 652 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.