BARSANA fire, March 2022 BARSANA, CALINESTI, STRAMTURA
The fire started on 21 March 2022 in BARSANA, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 348 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Maramureș since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 32 in Romania in 2022, of 186.
- Burnt area
- 348ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 21 Mar 2022 – 24 Mar 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Mar
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 6 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 11%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 30 Mar.
This area had burned before
32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 110 ha in 2020.
What happened to each town
-
BARSANA where it started260 ha reached on 29 Mar3.6 %
-
57 ha reached on 26 Mar0.9 %
-
30 ha reached on 29 Mar0.3 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Broadleaved forest72 %
- Agricultural areas28 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 11 %
- ZEPA + LIC Valea Izei și Dealul Solovan ROSCI0264 · ROSPA0171
Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Mar | 12.0 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 22 Mar | 17.1 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 23 Mar | 19.0 °C | 14 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 24 Mar | 16.9 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 25 Mar after | 11.6 °C | 32 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 26 Mar after | 14.9 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 27 Mar after | 12.7 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 28 Mar after | 15.4 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 29 Mar after | 18.0 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 10 |
| 30 Mar after | 15.1 °C | 45 % | 45 km/h | 1.9 mm | Very low 2 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 24 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 6Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the BARSANA fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 21 March 2022 and 24 March 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 348 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: BARSANA (260 ha, 3.6 %); CALINESTI (57 ha, 0.9 %); STRAMTURA (30 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 19.0 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Romania (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
Satellite cross-check
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
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 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.