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DZ · Algeria · –

Salah Bouchaour fire, July 2026 صالح بوالشعور · Salah Bouchaour

Out · last detection 20 Jul 2026, 13:06 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2026 in Salah Bouchaour, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 172 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 68th largest in Skikda since 2016 (of 102 with a page). Number 154 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Hammam Beni Salah · 2016El Khroub · 2021Azzaba · 2026Ain Bouziane · 2026

Burnt area
172ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 2days
19 Jul 2026 – 20 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
19 Jul
2026
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
54MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul20 Jul
20 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

19 Jul 2026 · 97 MW · 5 20 Jul 2026 · 12 MW · 2
19 Jul 20 Jul

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
31km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Salah Bouchaour صالح بوالشعور 29,764 inhabitants · 6.8 km from the centre where it started
    172 ha reached on 19 Jul
    1.8 %

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

  • Other natural land38 %
  • Agricultural areas36 %
  • Mixed forest26 %

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)
19 Jul 42.2 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 58
20 Jul 38.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jul after 42.1 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm Extreme 56
22 Jul after 38.0 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Jul after 37.0 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
24 Jul after 34.0 °C 55 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Jul after 33.9 °C 49 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jul after 31.4 °C 49 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul after 29.0 °C 62 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm High 24
28 Jul after 29.7 °C 55 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Jul after 31.9 °C 52 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jul after 32.2 °C 54 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 58.3, a minimum humidity of 20% and 33 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 21.

FWI at the start 58.3
Minimum humidity 20 %
Days without rain 33
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Hammam Beni Salah fire, September 2016
158 ha 1 day FWI 57.3 Min. humidity 19 % 101 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.4 mm on 6 Sept.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
229 ha
median area
19 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 21 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (172 ha against a median of 229 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

In 7 of 21, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
31km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 20 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 21, with a median of 2.0 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2026
After · 27 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 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak48 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10118 µg/m³
Optical depth0.85
17 Jul19 Jul21 Jul
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 · 7Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Salah Bouchaour fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (19 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 20 July 2026 (2 days from 19 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 172 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Salah Bouchaour (172 ha, 1.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Salah Bouchaour and came within 6.8 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 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 21. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 229 ha; 19 % went past 1,000 ha. In 7 of 21, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.

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 With cross-checks and a citable version

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.
  • 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. 7 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.