How long did the Zbarbar fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2023 and 25 July 2023: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,687 hectares (26.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 5 municipalities: Maala (1,311 ha, 24 %); Zbarbar (992 ha, 17 %); Kadiria (357 ha, 3.8 %); El Mokrani (23 ha, 0.4 %); Meghraoua (9 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Zbarbar and came within 1.5 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 45.5 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, 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 · 2023-07-20 → 2023-07-25

Zbarbar fire, 20 July 2023 معالة · Maala, Zbarbar, Kadiria

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2023, 02:33 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2023 in Zbarbar, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,687 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Blida since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 7 in Algeria in 2023, of 86.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Maala · 2023 Kadiria · 2026 Djebahia · 2023 Deux Bassins · 2021

Burnt area: 2,687ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 20 Jul 2023 – 25 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit: 5; communes
Started on: 20 Jul; 2023
Heat detections: 163; in a single hotspot: 207 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.5GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul25 Jul

Play back 25 Jul 2023

How it evolved, day by day

20 Jul 23 Jul 24 Jul 25 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

46°high

52km/h · peak gust

4%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 4 Aug.

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 1.7% of the area of London (27 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

Maala

1,311 ha reached on 24 Jul

24 %
Zbarbar معالة 5,296 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the centre where it started

992 ha reached on 20 Jul

17 %
Kadiria

357 ha

3.8 %
El Mokrani المقراني 3,961 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the centre

23 ha

0.4 %
Meghraoua مغراوة 5,647 inhabitants · 8.2 km from the centre

9 ha

0.1 %

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 forest72 %
Other natural land19 %
Other land cover6.6 %
Broadleaved forest1.3 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area7.5 ha

Residents≈ 1,100

Inside the perimeter there were about 7.5 hectares of built-up land and about 1,100 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
20 Jul	39.6 °C	24 %	36 km/h	1.0 mm	Very high 40
21 Jul	37.3 °C	29 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 41
22 Jul	37.3 °C	35 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 42
23 Jul	45.5 °C	9 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 70
24 Jul	42.3 °C	4 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 76
25 Jul	35.0 °C	29 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
26 Jul after	33.6 °C	38 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
27 Jul after	38.6 °C	28 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
28 Jul after	35.9 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 Jul after	34.3 °C	55 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
30 Jul after	34.6 °C	44 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
31 Jul after	35.3 °C	36 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
1 Aug after	34.2 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
2 Aug after	36.2 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
3 Aug after	37.5 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
4 Aug after	30.3 °C	50 %	48 km/h	1.7 mm	Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Jul 2023

After · 1 Aug 2023

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 25 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 113 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 70: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak113 µg/m³

Days over the guideline8 days

PM10209 µg/m³

Optical depth1.32

WHO 15

1819202122232425262728

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 · 163Every 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 Zbarbar fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2023 and 25 July 2023: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,687 hectares (26.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 5 municipalities: Maala (1,311 ha, 24 %); Zbarbar (992 ha, 17 %); Kadiria (357 ha, 3.8 %); El Mokrani (23 ha, 0.4 %); Meghraoua (9 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Zbarbar and came within 1.5 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 45.5 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, 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?

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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. 163 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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