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DZ · Algeria ·

Zighoud Youcef fire, July 2026 زيغود يوسف · Zighoud Youcef, Beni Oulbane, Beni Hamidene

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2026, 13:13 UTC

The fire started on 10 July 2026 in Zighoud Youcef, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,489 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Skikda since 2016 (of 102 with a page). Number 44 in Algeria in 2026, of 197.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ain Charchar · 2020Hamala · 2025Ain Bouziane · 2026Oum Toub · 2026

Burnt area
1,489ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 1day
10 Jul 2026 – 10 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
10 Jul
2026
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
301MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jul10 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

10 Jul 2026 · 301 MW · 8

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
24km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 36 ha in 2024, 80 ha in 2025.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.9% of the area of London (15 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

  1. Zighoud Youcef زيغود يوسف 35,248 inhabitants · 7.6 km from the centre where it started
    1,034 ha reached on 10 Jul
    4.3 %
  2. Beni Oulbane
    278 ha reached on 10 Jul
    1.7 %
  3. Beni Hamidene بني حميدان 9,397 inhabitants · 6.1 km from the centre
    181 ha reached on 10 Jul
    1.3 %

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

  • Other natural land57 %
  • Agricultural areas26 %
  • Mixed forest17 %

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)
10 Jul 39.6 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Jul after 39.9 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.7 mm Extreme 57
12 Jul after 41.2 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 66
13 Jul after 41.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Jul after 42.0 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 57
15 Jul after 42.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm Extreme 59
16 Jul after 43.4 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm Extreme 57
17 Jul after 43.6 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 68
18 Jul after 43.1 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm Extreme 66
19 Jul after 43.2 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 64
20 Jul after 42.6 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 53

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 49.1, a minimum humidity of 15% and 16 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 52.

FWI at the start 49.1
Minimum humidity 15 %
Days without rain 16
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ain Charchar fire, July 2020
205 ha 4 days FWI 49.4 Min. humidity 17 % 55 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
228 ha
median area
8 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 29 of 52 had it)

It was 6.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

Only 3 of its 52 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 23 of 52, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
24km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 10 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 29 of 52, with a median of 1.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jul 2026
After · 17 Jul 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 12 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1037 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
8 Jul10 Jul12 Jul
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 · 8Every 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 Zighoud Youcef fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (10 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 10 July 2026 (1 day from 10 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,489 hectares (14.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Zighoud Youcef (1,034 ha, 4.3 %); Beni Oulbane (278 ha, 1.7 %); Beni Hamidene (181 ha, 1.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 6.1 km of the centre of Beni Hamidene, 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 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 52. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 228 ha; 8 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 3 of its 52 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 23 of 52, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.6 mm.

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

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 With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 8 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.

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.