Algeria declares three days of mourning as Kabylie fires kill at least 12

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune declared three days of national mourning on Thursday after wildfires in north-east Algeria killed at least 12 people and sent 54 to hospital, six of them in serious condition. Flags were ordered to half-mast. Cultural events and national sporting fixtures were cancelled.

Interior Minister Said Sayoud gave the first official split: five dead in Jijel, four in Béjaïa, three in Tizi Ouzou. Civil Protection said on Thursday morning that 46 fires were still burning out of 193 recorded in the previous 24 hours. Army aircraft and AT-802 water bombers joined ground crews. Three main roads near Béjaïa, Jijel and Sétif were closed.

Local reports on Friday put the death toll higher. Voice of Emirates and other regional outlets cited a provisional figure of 73 and a mass burial in Djemaa Beni Habibi, Jijel province, for 39 victims, including whole families. Those numbers had not been repeated in a Civil Protection communique by Friday afternoon. The gap between the ministry's first count and the burial reports is the fact that still needs a single official ledger.

The fires started on Wednesday, 26 August, in forested mountain communes where people keep livestock and small plots. Residents who tried to move animals or load a truck were caught on the roads. Videos posted overnight showed slopes fully involved. AFP said it could not verify the clips at the time.

Tebboune's letter to the families called the deaths a tragedy and a great misfortune. He noted that the state had only just begun paying compensation for earlier fires that had been brought under control. The Kabylie belt, Tizi Ouzou, Béjaïa and Jijel, burns in most hot summers. What changed this week was the speed with which separate fronts lit across ten eastern wilayas and the decision to treat the week as a national, not a provincial, event.

Civil Protection later described 174 fires across those provinces over two days, with 110 extinguished and 64 still active in one of the Friday tallies. The figures move as crews close a front and another opens on the next ridge. Heat and wind, not a single ignition point, are doing the work.

Algeria has used army aircraft in previous fire seasons. The AT-802s are the same type other Mediterranean states use on short runs from coastal strips. The constraint is water sources and turnaround time in steep terrain, not the existence of planes. Road closures cut the ground network that those planes are supposed to support.

Mediterranean fire seasons have lengthened. Greece, Spain, Italy and the Maghreb now share the same July-August pattern: overnight flare-ups on slopes where olive and cork give way to scrub, and villages that empty too slowly because livestock are still in the yard. Algeria's civil protection service is large by regional standards. It is still a ground force trying to match a weather system.

Compensation from earlier blazes is already in the presidential letter, which is a tell. The state knows this is a recurring bill, not a one-off disaster. Three days of mourning buys a pause in football and concerts. It does not buy water in the air or a road through Jijel that stays open after dark. Families in Djemaa Beni Habibi have already buried their dead. The interior ministry still owes them a single list that matches the graves.

Mourning ends over the weekend. The fires will not. The useful number for the next 48 hours is not the presidential decree. It is how many of the remaining fronts Civil Protection marks as contained, and whether the burial count in Jijel is absorbed into the interior ministry total or left as an unofficial figure standing beside it.