Zerdaza fire, August 2026 زردازة · Zerdaza
The fire started on 27 August 2026 in Zerdaza, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 120 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 90th largest in Skikda since 2016 (of 102 with a page). Number 182 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.
- Burnt area
- 120ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 27 Aug 2026 – 28 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 27 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 19
- in a single hotspot: 55 MW
- Danger at start
- 88
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 452MW
- 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 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18 ha in 2020.
What happened to each town
-
120 ha reached on 27 Aug1.2 %
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 forest69 %
- Other natural land29 %
- Agricultural areas1.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Aug | 46.5 °C | 7 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 88 |
| 28 Aug | 34.8 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 29 Aug after | 38.5 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 30 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 55 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 31 Aug after | 33.9 °C | 53 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Sept after | 36.9 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Sept after | 37.5 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Sept after | 35.6 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Sept after | 31.6 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Sept after | 32.1 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
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 29 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 455 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 199: 13 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 · 19Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,623 haAzzaba عزابةAugust 2026 · 2 days · 18 km away
- 3,913 haAin Bouziane عين بوزيانJuly 2026 · 1 day · 21 km away
- 14,609 haAin Charchar عين شرشار17 July 2026 · 2 days · 24 km away
- 3,593 haIbn Badis ابن باديسAugust 2022 · 2 days · 27 km away
- 6,045 haIbn Badis ابن باديسJuly 2026 · 1 day · 29 km away
- 3,814 haOum Toub أم الطوبAugust 2026 · 3 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Zerdaza fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2026 to 28 August 2026 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2026 to 27 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 120 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Zerdaza (120 ha, 1.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.1 km of Zerdaza. 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 46.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 88, 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
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.