How long did the Bar Municipality fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (23 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 8 August 2026 (17 days from 23 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 300 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bar Municipality (300 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.

Where does this data come from?

From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Montenegro (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

ME · Montenegro · 2026-07-23 → 2026-08-08

Bar Municipality fire, July 2026 Bar Municipality

Out · last detection 3 Aug 2026, 00:41 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2026 in Bar Municipality, Montenegro, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 300 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

Number 29 in Montenegro in 2026, of 54.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bar Municipality · 2017 Bar Municipality · 2017 Budva Municipality · 2018 Budva Municipality · 2024

Burnt area: 300ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: ≈ 17days; 23 Jul 2026 – 8 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 23 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 17; in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 15MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul8 Aug

Play back 3 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

25 Jul 26 Jul 3 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

27°high

43km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Bar Municipality where it started

300 ha reached on 25 Jul

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

Other natural land72 %
Scrub and transitional woodland15 %
Broadleaved forest13 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
23 Jul	21.0 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
24 Jul	18.9 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Jul	19.7 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
26 Jul	20.0 °C	41 %	21 km/h	0.4 mm	High 23
27 Jul	19.2 °C	77 %	34 km/h	87.5 mm	Very low 0
28 Jul	23.9 °C	54 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
29 Jul	25.1 °C	44 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
30 Jul	24.1 °C	49 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
31 Jul	25.0 °C	47 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
1 Aug	27.2 °C	30 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
2 Aug	22.7 °C	63 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
3 Aug	22.8 °C	66 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
4 Aug	23.9 °C	61 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
5 Aug	24.0 °C	56 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
6 Aug	24.4 °C	55 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
7 Aug	24.3 °C	61 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
8 Aug	26.2 °C	48 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
9 Aug after	26.0 °C	47 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
10 Aug after	25.6 °C	49 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
11 Aug after	24.8 °C	62 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
12 Aug after	27.9 °C	35 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
13 Aug after	27.4 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
14 Aug after	25.7 °C	38 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
15 Aug after	24.9 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
16 Aug after	22.2 °C	60 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
17 Aug after	22.2 °C	68 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
18 Aug after	21.8 °C	70 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Jul 2026

After · 15 Aug 2026

Before After

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 2 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1028 µg/m³

Optical depth0.64

WHO 15

212223242526272829303112345678910

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 · 17Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Montenegro ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bar Municipality fire last?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (23 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 8 August 2026 (17 days from 23 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 300 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bar Municipality (300 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
Where does this data come from?: From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Montenegro (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

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: 112 · 123 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 23 July 2026 → 8 August 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 112 · 123.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 17 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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 ADM1 (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.

Where it burned