Tichy fire, August 2026 تيشي · Tichy, Boukhelifa
The fire started on 26 August 2026 in Tichy, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,274 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 6th largest in Bejaia since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 22 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.
- Burnt area
- 3,274ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 26 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 26 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 61
- in a single hotspot: 31 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 569MW
- sum of detected power
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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 689 ha in 2020, 387 ha in 2021, 6 ha in 2022, 402 ha in 2023, 3 ha in 2024, 43 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,433 ha that had burned before.
- 553 ha Tichy fire, July 2020 943 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 359 ha Boukhelifa fire, August 2021 613 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 252 ha Tichy fire, September 2023 251 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 133 ha Tichy fire, September 2023 838 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 71 ha Tichy fire, August 2020 147 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
2,396 ha reached on 27 Aug43 %
-
884 ha reached on 27 Aug7.6 %
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 forest79 %
- Other natural land20 %
- Agricultural areas1.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Aug | 38.7 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 23 |
| 27 Aug | 34.1 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 28 Aug | 30.2 °C | 41 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 29 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 72 % | 38 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 30 Aug after | 26.5 °C | 77 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 31 Aug after | 26.9 °C | 83 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 1 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 66 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 2 Sept after | 30.7 °C | 52 % | 19 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 9 |
| 3 Sept after | 28.0 °C | 73 % | 14 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 4 Sept after | 26.6 °C | 62 % | 13 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 5 Sept after | 25.5 °C | 70 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
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 30 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 469 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 277: 18 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 · 61Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,699 haBoukhelifa بوخليفة10 August 2021 · 7 days · 6 km away
- 18,731 haDarguina درقينة19 August 2026 · 13 days · 19 km away
- 3,042 haMelbou ملبوJuly 2023 · 3 days · 26 km away
- 9,887 haToudja توجةAugust 2021 · 7 days · 29 km away
- 3,264 haToudja توجةAugust 2026 · 3 days · 29 km away
- 3,720 haBeni Djellil بني جليلJuly 2023 · 6 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tichy 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 3,274 hectares (32.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tichy (2,396 ha, 43 %); Boukhelifa (884 ha, 7.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Tichy. 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 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class High.
- 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
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.