The Balkans are busy with their own fires this summer, waving their fire hoses across borders to assist their neighbours, while a disaster of another magnitude is playing out in North Africa, with little notice being taken at home. On 26th and 27th August, Algeria reported 12 deaths and 54 injuries in wildfires, with a total of 154 fires in a single day, highlighting the same heat and dry pattern affecting the Mediterranean region over the entire month of August, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Balkans.

Interior Minister Said Sayoud told reporters the deaths had been reported in three provinces in the north-east of the country. The toll in Jijel province was five, in Bejaia four, and in Tizi Ouzou province three, Sayoud said. A local radio station quoted by Arab News reported that the dead in Bejaia include an eight-year-old boy and a 22-year-old woman.

Sayoud made the visit while accompanying Health Minister Mohamed Seddik Ait Messaoudene to visit the wards in the hospital in the town of Souk El Tenine, located in Bejaia province, to meet the wounded. The official APS news agency reported that 54 people were taken to that hospital with burns and smoke inhalation, six of them in serious condition.

How Many Fires are Active?

As of 8 p.m. local time on Wednesday, Algeria’s Civil Protection agency reported 69 fires in the country. The province of Bejaia, located approximately 300km north-east of the capital Algiers, was hardest hit, with 36 fires being reported and 18 of them being extinguished by the time Sayoud spoke. Fires broke out in the neighbouring Jijel and consumed 12 municipalities, with 18 active fires.

The minister says that firefighting efforts succeeded in putting out fires in the provinces of Skikda, El Tarf, Bouira, Tizi Ouzou and Tebessa. The Gendarmerie has shut three key national highways due to the fires, near Bejaia, Jijel and Setif, while Civil Protection has mobilised large forces to put out the fires, which have been complicated by strong winds.

Dozens of families have been evacuated from the worst-hit areas. Residents have taken shelter inside a post office building, according to a video shot by the regional news outlet Jijel News, which was picked up by Al Jazeera and Arab News.

Why This Summer

Wildfires are a common occurrence in the summer in the north of Algeria, but this year’s surge has followed a pattern. Algeria recorded almost 2,000 fires across the country in July 2026 alone, Arab News said citing official sources. Over 100 people evacuated their homes in Annaba province temporarily in late July due to fires, causing damage to almost 150 houses. Four people from Constantine province were arrested over the July fires, and official investigations after such incidents frequently result in arrests for suspected arson.

This week’s heat wave in Algeria has also taken place in neighbouring Tunisia, indicating it is not a local phenomenon but a heat wave over the southern Mediterranean. Algeria has seen its fair share of devastating wildfires in the past: In July 2023, fires burned in and around Bejaia, killing over 30 and destroying thousands of hectares of forest and farmland and hundreds of homes.

In contrast with the other European countries with similar problems, Algeria is very rarely assisted by foreign firefighting crews or water-bombing aircraft of other countries in the region; the firefighting effort is mostly carried out by its own Civil Protection resources. The total number of active fires and the number of houses still standing will not be known until the fires have actually ceased.