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Texenna fire, August 2026 تاكسنة · Texenna, Oudjana, Emir Abdelkader

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2026, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Texenna, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 15,144 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Jijel since 2016 (of 110 with a page). Number 6 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Burnt area
15,144ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
26 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
6
communes
Started on
26 Aug
2026
Heat detections
346
in a single hotspot: 255 MW
Danger at start
97
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
11.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

262728

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

43°high
83km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 629 ha in 2017, 782 ha in 2020, 118 ha in 2021, 24 ha in 2022, 1,661 ha in 2023, 5 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,005 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Texenna تاكسنة 15,682 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town where it started
    8,248 ha reached on 26 Aug
    50 %
  2. Oudjana وجانة 9,580 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town
    3,589 ha reached on 27 Aug
    59 %
  3. Emir Abdelkader بلدية الأمير عبد القادر 38,468 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town
    1,115 ha reached on 27 Aug
    23 %
  4. Kaous قاوس 26,137 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town
    1,056 ha reached on 27 Aug
    20 %
  5. Boudria Ben Yadjis بودريعة بن ياجيس 10,710 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town
    780 ha reached on 27 Aug
    9.9 %
  6. Chahna بلدية الشحنة 8,781 inhabitants · 4.2 km from the town
    386 ha reached on 27 Aug
    4.5 %

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 forest71 %
  • Other natural land24 %
  • Agricultural areas3.4 %
  • Other land cover0.9 %

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
Incendies de Jijel · Black Wednesday · Feux de Jijel (El Ancer, Texenna, El Milia)
According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
  • Boukhelaf / Mechtat El Messa (Texenna) 26 August 2026
  • Ghebala (Chekfa) 26 August 2026
  • Bouakba (Ouled Yahia Khedrouche) 26 August 2026
  • Asraf Er-Rouached (Sidi Maarouf) 26 August 2026
  • El Ancer 26 August 2026
Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 30 August 2026

Sources

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)
26 Aug 42.7 °C 9 % 83 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 97
27 Aug 43.1 °C 7 % 80 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 98
28 Aug 34.8 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 58
29 Aug after 34.5 °C 28 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Aug after 34.2 °C 48 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug after 33.8 °C 44 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Sept after 36.4 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Sept after 37.5 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Sept after 33.8 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept after 30.5 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Sept after 31.1 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Aug 2026
After · 4 Sept 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 29 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 980 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 414: 28 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak980 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM101,105 µg/m³
Optical depth3.45
242526272829
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 · 346Every 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 Texenna fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 August 2026 to 28 August 2026 (3 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 15,144 hectares (151.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 6 municipalities: Texenna (8,248 ha, 50 %); Oudjana (3,589 ha, 59 %); Emir Abdelkader (1,115 ha, 23 %); Kaous (1,056 ha, 20 %); Boudria Ben Yadjis (780 ha, 9.9 %); Chahna (386 ha, 4.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Oudjana. 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 42.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 83 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 97, 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

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.

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.