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RS · Serbia ·

Babusnica Municipality fire, August 2019 Бабушница · Babusnica Municipality

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2019, 11:29 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2019 in Babusnica Municipality, Serbia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 247 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Pirotski upravni okrug since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 14 in Serbia in 2019, of 38.

Burnt area
247ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
28 Aug 2019 – 28 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2019
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
179MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

28 Aug 2019 · 179 MW · 8

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

29°high
37km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 38 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Babusnica Municipality Бабушница 9,109 inhabitants · 5.8 km from the centre where it started
    247 ha reached on 28 Aug
    0.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Scrub and transitional woodland44 %
  • Other natural land37 %
  • Agricultural areas18 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.8 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
28 Aug 29.1 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
29 Aug after 29.3 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Aug after 29.6 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug after 28.1 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
1 Sept after 27.7 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Sept after 29.3 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Sept after 27.2 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept after 23.0 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Sept after 26.9 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Sept after 25.9 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
7 Sept after 24.5 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 31.4, a minimum humidity of 31% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 20.

FWI at the start 31.4
Minimum humidity 31 %
Days without rain 12
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Brusartsi fire, September 2026
211 ha 2 days FWI 31.3 Min. humidity 30 % 65 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.0 mm on 22 Sept.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
289 ha
median area
10 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 20 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (247 ha against a median of 289 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 3 days.

In 5 of 20, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.9 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
37km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 20, with a median of 2.9 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 21 Aug 2019
After · 4 Sept 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 31 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
26 Aug28 Aug30 Aug
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 8Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Serbia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Babusnica Municipality fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 28 August 2019 and 28 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 247 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Babusnica Municipality (247 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Babusnica Municipality and came within 5.8 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Serbia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 20. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 289 ha; 10 % went past 1,000 ha. In 5 of 20, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.9 mm.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 193 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 193 · 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 8 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.