As wildfires once again tear through northern Algeria this July, the same grim image resurfaces every summer of villagers standing in front of walls of flame armed with nothing but tree branches and plastic buckets.
It is a scene that has repeated itself for at least five consecutive fire seasons, proof that Algeria has learned nothing, and that the failure sits squarely with Abdelmadjid Tebboune, whose lies about imminent purchase of Canadair water bombers in 2021 could not withstand the test of time.
Algeria now spends more on its military than any other country in Africa. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Algiers spent $25.4 billion on defense in 2025, 11% more than the year before, a sum accounting for almost half of the combined military expenditure of the entire African continent.
While Algeria spends lavishly on Russian firefighters, it still does not have, year after deadly year, a dedicated fleet of Canadair amphibious water bombers, like neighboring Morocco which already operates 8 such aircrafts and helps neighbors every summer.
Morocco, spending a fraction of Algeria’s defense budget, has built exactly the kind of dedicated water-bomber capacity Algiers lacks, a contrast increasingly noted by regional commentators as fires expose the gap in real time.
Tebboune himself vowed in a televised address on August 12, 2021- as the death toll from that summer’s fires climbed past 69- that he had personally instructed the Algerian army to buy water-bomber aircraft.
He spoke as though Canadairs were something you could order and receive within weeks.
The cost of that gap is measured in lives, not hectares. So far, 6 people lost their lives in preventable fires.
