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Ouled Hbaba fire, July 2026 أولاد أحبابة · Ouled Hbaba, Bordj Sabat, Bouhamdane

Out · last measured on 21 Jul 2026

The fire started on 21 July 2026 in Ouled Hbaba, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 894 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 21th largest in Skikda since 2016 (of 102 with a page). Number 62 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ouled Hbaba · 2017Ouled Hbaba · 2020Ibn Badis · 2022Ibn Badis · 2026

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
894ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
21 Jul 2026 – 21 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
21 Jul
2026
Danger at start
72
Very extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

44°high
27km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 27 Jul.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 150 ha in 2017, 75 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (8.9 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ouled Hbaba أولاد أحبابة 8,369 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre where it started
    703 ha
    3.6 %
  2. Bordj Sabat برج صباط 10,158 inhabitants · 7.8 km from the centre
    159 ha
    0.8 %
  3. Bouhamdane بوحمدان 4,394 inhabitants · 8.7 km from the centre
    34 ha
    0.2 %

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 forest52 %
  • Other natural land36 %
  • Agricultural areas9.7 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.7 %

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)
21 Jul 43.5 °C 6 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
22 Jul after 42.7 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
23 Jul after 42.3 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
24 Jul after 39.5 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
25 Jul after 39.8 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 65
26 Jul after 36.5 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Jul after 28.5 °C 42 % 46 km/h 1.7 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2026
After · 28 Jul 2026

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 22 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 70 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak70 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10117 µg/m³
Optical depth1.24
192021222324
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ouled Hbaba fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 21 July 2026 and 21 July 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 894 hectares (8.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ouled Hbaba (703 ha, 3.6 %); Bordj Sabat (159 ha, 0.8 %); Bouhamdane (34 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Ouled Hbaba and came within 3.0 km of its centre. 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 43.5 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.