How long did the Tamza fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 4 July 2021 and 10 July 2021: 7 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 9,168 hectares (91.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Tamza (5,658 ha, 12 %); Chelia (3,086 ha, 20 %); Bouhmama (428 ha, 1.0 %); Kais (22 ha, 0.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire came within 2.0 km of the centre of Chelia, 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 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 101, 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 · 2021-07-04 → 2021-07-10

Tamza fire, 4 July 2021 طامزة · Tamza, Chelia, Bouhmama

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2021, 13:20 UTC

The fire started on 4 July 2021 in Tamza, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 9,168 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

Number 3 in Algeria in 2021, of 92.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Chelia · 2021 Tamza · 2021 Tamza · 2021 Bouhmama · 2018

Burnt area: 9,168ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 7days; 4 Jul 2021 – 10 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit: 4; communes
Started on: 4 Jul; 2021
Heat detections: 456; in a single hotspot: 141 MW
Danger at start: 101; Very extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.2GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jul10 Jul

Play back 10 Jul 2021

How it evolved, day by day

5 Jul 6 Jul 7 Jul 8 Jul 9 Jul 10 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

38°high

63km/h · peak gust

5%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 13 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 5.8% of the area of London (92 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

Tamza طامزة 8,617 inhabitants · 13.5 km from the centre where it started

5,658 ha reached on 5 Jul

12 %
Chelia شلية 4,953 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre

3,086 ha reached on 5 Jul

20 %
Bouhmama بوحمامة 10,614 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the centre

428 ha reached on 7 Jul

1.0 %
Kais قايس 28,724 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre

22 ha

0.4 %

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 forest92 %
Other natural land6.5 %
Broadleaved forest0.9 %
Agricultural areas0.5 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as: Feux de Khenchela · Tamza fire · Aïn Mimoun (Tamza)
According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:: Aïn Mimoun / Aïn Rebib 4 July 2021

Issoumer y Soumâate 4 July 2021

Bir Ouanes (Chelia) 4 July 2021

Hammam Djir 4 July 2021

Sources

Incendies à Khenchela : un bilan environnemental catastrophique — Algerie360, 10 July 2021
Dans le brasier de Khenchela — Liberté, 10 July 2021
Khenchela : près de 1500 hectares de couvert végétal détruits par les incendies — Algerie Eco, 6 July 2021
A case study about the forest fire occurred on 05 July 2021 over Khenchela province, Algeria — Frontiers in Remote Sensing

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)
4 Jul	37.5 °C	6 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 101
5 Jul	37.2 °C	9 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 80
6 Jul	38.2 °C	5 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
7 Jul	35.3 °C	11 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 81
8 Jul	34.3 °C	12 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
9 Jul	34.8 °C	12 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
10 Jul	36.5 °C	9 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 98
11 Jul after	35.1 °C	10 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 70
12 Jul after	36.6 °C	8 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 75
13 Jul after	35.0 °C	10 %	58 km/h	2.2 mm	Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Jun 2021

After · 17 Jul 2021

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 8 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 39: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³

Days over the guideline11 days

PM10136 µg/m³

WHO 15

2345678910111213

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 · 456Every 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 Tamza fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 4 July 2021 and 10 July 2021: 7 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 9,168 hectares (91.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Tamza (5,658 ha, 12 %); Chelia (3,086 ha, 20 %); Bouhmama (428 ha, 1.0 %); Kais (22 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire came within 2.0 km of the centre of Chelia, 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 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 101, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 456 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.

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.

Where it burned