As the Maghreb swelters under relentless summer heat, wildfires are once again sweeping across Morocco and Algeria, fuelled by heatwaves, prolonged drought, and strong winds.
In northern Morocco, blazes erupted near Chefchaouen and Tetouan on the night of 12 August as the temperature reached over 40°C, destroying more than 500 hectares of forest and farmland in just a few hours.
For comparison, the total area burned across the entire 2024 season was less than 780 hectares.
For many locals, the summer fires have become a grim routine. "In the past four years, our olive groves and cattle have been badly hit. In the most recent blaze, at least five houses were reduced to ashes in the Chefchaouen region," said Abdellilah Mohammed, a resident there.
Authorities deployed 450 firefighters, four Canadair water bombers, and four Turbo Thrush aircraft, but conditions made the job nearly impossible.
"Low humidity, very high temperatures, winds of more than 40km/h, and dense forest cover made firefighting operations extremely difficult," Youssef Zarroqi, provincial director at Morocco's National Agency for Water and Forests (ANEF), told local media l'Opinion.
Although the situation is now contained, officials warn that fire risk remains high as extreme weather stretches the fire season across the Mediterranean.
Neighbouring Algeria is also on high alert. Fires in the northeastern province of Bejaia this week forced civil protection teams, supported by water-bombing planes, to intervene as flames spread through parched landscapes.
Authorities have urged citizens to remain vigilant, as high winds and dry air are expected to continue.
While in 2021, Algeria accused Morocco and "foreign hands" of being behind some of the deadly fires that killed dozens of people in the Kabylie region—accusations that Rabat firmly rejected—experts say this surge is part of a serious climate trend away from political grievances.
"The increase in wildfires is a climate signal. Hotter, longer heatwaves and multi-year droughts are drying up forests and increasing the frequency of 'fire-weather' days throughout the Mediterranean, especially Morocco and Algeria", climate researcher Fatna El Fanne told The New Arab.
"That means vegetation ignites and spreads more easily, and winds may quickly propel flames into rocky terrain."
Land-use changes and rural abandonment, which leave behind more flammable vegetation, also raise the risk.
Morocco has been investing heavily in fire prevention and response.
In May, the Moroccan government announced that it had allocated about $17 million to boost wildfire prevention and response efforts for summer 2025.
The country has expanded its aerial fleet with the arrival of a seventh Canadair CL-415 aircraft, capable of carrying over 6,000 litres of water.
These planes, alongside drones and improved satellite-based fire-risk mapping, are pre-positioned in high-risk areas to shorten response times.
Last season, ANEF said these efforts helped protect 19,000 hectares of forest, with 80% of fires contained before they reached a hectare in size.
Still, officials acknowledge that prevention remains as important as firefighting.
"With the impact of climate change, international experts estimate that forest fire pressure will rise by more than 35% by 2050," confirmed Fouad Assali, head of the ANEF.
Despite Morocco's relative progress, experts warn the Maghreb is still unprepared for the scale of wildfires.
"Across the Maghreb, prevention, fuel management, and land-use planning lag behind firefighting capacity, making it harder to limit the impact of extreme fires," explained El Fanne, director of Youth for climate Moroccan, a local grassroots movement, in her interview with TNA.
For now, Morocco's fire-risk bulletins warn of "extreme risk" in northern provinces including Chefchaouen, Tétouan, and Taza. Algeria, too, braces for more flare-ups as temperatures remain high.
The trend is mirrored across the wider Mediterranean. Countries from Spain to Greece and Italy have faced increasingly severe wildfires in recent years.
And while forests in the Mediterranean are resilient and may regenerate within a decade, officials and experts agree that wildfires are becoming a structural feature of the region's changing climate.