Over 100 Hospitalized, 150 Homes Damaged in Algeria Blazes

 A wildfire rages in a mountainous area near the town of Al Hachimia, Bouira Province, on July 21, 2026. (AFP)
A wildfire rages in a mountainous area near the town of Al Hachimia, Bouira Province, on July 21, 2026. (AFP)
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Over 100 Hospitalized, 150 Homes Damaged in Algeria Blazes

 A wildfire rages in a mountainous area near the town of Al Hachimia, Bouira Province, on July 21, 2026. (AFP)
A wildfire rages in a mountainous area near the town of Al Hachimia, Bouira Province, on July 21, 2026. (AFP)

More than 100 people were hospitalized after wildfires reached nearly 150 homes in a small town in north-eastern Algeria, the country's interior minister said on Wednesday.

The fires broke out on Tuesday in Seraidi, a town west of the city of Annaba surrounded by forests.

Civil protection crews were still battling the blazes on Wednesday morning, the minister said.

Interior Minister Said Sayoud told reporters at a local hospital that most of the hospitalized people were in a "stable and reassuring" condition, adding that more than 150 homes had been affected by the fires, AFP reported. 

Algeria has been grappling with hundreds of wildfires for days, with at least six people dead in several provinces, according to the interior ministry.

Every summer, northern Algeria is struck by forest fires, a phenomenon exacerbated by drought and climate change.

Dozens of people have been killed in recent years and thousands of hectares of forest or farmland destroyed, along with numerous homes.