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Zouabi fire, July 2025 الزوابي · Zouabi

Out · last measured on 20 Jul 2025

The fire started on 20 July 2025 in Zouabi, Algeria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 275 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Souk Ahras since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 10 in Algeria in 2025, of 35.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
275ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
20 Jul 2025 – 20 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
20 Jul
2025
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

37°high
37km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 23 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Zouabi الزوابي 2,792 inhabitants · 7.3 km from the town where it started
    276 ha
    2.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas94 %
  • Other natural land5.9 %

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)
20 Jul 37.4 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Jul after 38.5 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 51
22 Jul after 35.1 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 43
23 Jul after 38.5 °C 14 % 40 km/h 1.2 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2025
After · 27 Jul 2025

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 22 July 2025 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
PM1026 µg/m³
Optical depth0.21
181920212223
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Algeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Zouabi fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2025 and 20 July 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 275 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Zouabi (276 ha, 2.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 7.3 km of Zouabi. 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 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.

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.