Algerian emergency crews continued battling 19 wildfires across 10 provinces on Wednesday as an intense heat wave strained the country’s power grid and pushed electricity demand to a record high.
The General Directorate of Civil Protection said 139 fires had been reported since Tuesday, with firefighters extinguishing 120. Operations remained underway to contain the remaining blazes in provinces including Setif, Bejaia and Saida.
Military aircraft were deployed to assist firefighting teams by dropping water over affected areas, the agency said.
At least one person was killed and another seriously injured in a wildfire in Setif on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Energy and Renewable Energy Minister Mourad Adjal said electricity had been fully restored to all 16 provinces affected by a major blackout on Tuesday night.
Adjal told state television that the outage was caused by a technical failure at an electricity facility in the Sidi Okba area of Biskra Province. Extreme heat and high humidity triggered a series of power fluctuations that spread through the network, he said.
Algeria recorded its highest-ever electricity demand on Monday, reaching 21,870 megawatts as temperatures rose across much of the country.
State-owned utility Sonelgaz said the figure was 750 megawatts higher than the previous record of 21,120 megawatts, set only a day earlier.
The national meteorological service expects the heat wave to continue through Friday. Temperatures could reach 49C in desert regions and exceed 45C in some Mediterranean coastal provinces.
Algeria has faced increasingly frequent droughts and extreme temperatures in recent years, heightening the risk of forest and vegetation fires.
Major wildfires have killed dozens of people and destroyed large areas of vegetation in recent years, prompting authorities to introduce tougher penalties for deliberately starting fires, including prison sentences of up to 30 years.